Fireplaces suck.

[Gus Smedstad]

Oh, sure, the bonus warmth moodlet is nice enough.  But I've completely given up on using them until you can upgrade them to Fireproof, because they seem to have a Mean Time Between Failures of about 6 hours.  Light a cozy little fire to cheer up your party guests and there's a virtually 100% chance the fireplace will disrupt the party with a house fire.

This is worse than those damned cleaning robots in Open For Business.

 - Gus

[Lorelei]

Your fireplaces are too cheap. Upgrade, and they hardly ever catch fire.

[J. M. Pescado]

Oh, sure, the bonus warmth moodlet is nice enough.  But I've completely given up on using them until you can upgrade them to Fireproof, because they seem to have a Mean Time Between Failures of about 6 hours.

That's fairly normal and has always been the case in the Sims. Remember, any recurring event with a nonzero probability for occurrence and negative expected value has a probability of 1 for occurring. We know this particular rule as "Murphy's Law": Anything that can go wrong, will.

[Motoki]

I don't know Pescado, I am with Gus the amount of fires from fireplaces is way too overzealous and over the top. On the other hand, other things in the game, like being burglarized, is way too underrepresentated.

I have played this game a lot for over a month on a number of lots and family types. I have not had a single burglary yet I have had TONS of fires. It seems to be a common as breathing or going to the bathroom in sims land.

While you may enjoy fire and think it's a good thing because of your own personal just wanting to set the world on fire biases it really is annoying.

I like the warmth bonus but I won't touch a fireplace with a 10 foot pole, put any furniture near it or even have my sims go near it until I upgrade to fireproof and even doing that I need to get a sim who has mastered tinkering and has all the bonuses or guess what? They start a fire upgrading it. 

I have just been, pardon the pun, burned too many times.

I'd actually like to do the changing colors fireplace upgrade but I don't dare because while the fire may be pretty and ooh ahh colors, my sims will be singing Burning Down the House every day.

[Faizah]

I've had half a dozen burglaries. They actually seem to be more common with a burglar alarm, although that may just be my imagination, or the fact that 90% of my sims have burglar alarms.

I'll admit that fireplaces are annoying, but a simple fireproof upgrade solves that. I've done a few of these, and only once did the sim start a fire, and catch fire herself, both of which were actually disappointingly easily put out.

Also, if you do the 'change colours' upgrade and change the colour, the colour stays changed when you replace the upgrade with something else. One sim had a fireproof fireplace with a purple flame.

[Alex]

I quite liked the Auto Light upgrade until it resulted in burning the house down and killing everyone. I wish you could stack at least some of the upgrades.

[Mire Krisma]

How odd. I have burglaries quite often with some of my houses.

I think you might be on to something, Faizah. Though my Sims don't own burglar alarms, they all have at least one or two light sleepers in the household. I could venture to guess that this has similar properties to owning a burglar alarm.

[J. M. Pescado]

To get a burglar, everyone has to be asleep or out. Since in my households, like in real life, I post someone on watch, I never see any burglars.

[gamb]

The most expensive fireplace has auto-lights out of the box, so you can upgrade it to fireproof without losing your pretty green flames.

[Alex]

That's true. I just prefer the cheaper modern ones for some of my houses.

[ramseyazad]

The repetitive fires would be sort of entertaining if it didn't take so long for a sim to burn to death, and if the firemen/women didn't stand there staring at it for so long before they began dousing it.  It's actually a hassle to try and burn someone to death.  I had 3 fires in one day, catching several sims on fire, and never killed one.

[uknortherner]

Indeed. Fire in general in TS3 is a bit crap. Using "discoinferno", I expected a massive casualty rate to go alongside the entire town burning, but it didn't happen. I think only one sim actually died, because I made sure he did.

[Motoki]

To get a burglar, everyone has to be asleep or out. Since in my households, like in real life, I post someone on watch, I never see any burglars.

Ah that must be it. I think it's rare that everyone is asleep. And I admit since getting the damned moodlet manage my sims are addicted to it and have dispensed with sleep altogether.

Indeed. Fire in general in TS3 is a bit crap. Using "discoinferno", I expected a massive casualty rate to go alongside the entire town burning, but it didn't happen. I think only one sim actually died, because I made sure he did.

Really? I think probably 75% of the town died when I did it.

And the first fire I had way back was quite by accident. child sim was sitting down sort of by the fireplace area but not right in front of it either doing his homework and granpa was helping him when suddenly they both catch on fire. Gramps got away with just being singed. The boy was not so lucky. I was thinking (like TS2) that kids couldn't die in this game. Wrong. 

[Elanorea]

And the first fire I had way back was quite by accident. child sim was sitting down sort of by the fireplace area but not right in front of it either doing his homework and granpa was helping him when suddenly they both catch on fire. Gramps got away with just being singed. The boy was not so lucky. I was thinking (like TS2) that kids couldn't die in this game. Wrong. 

Children could die in TS2 as well. I'm not sure whether they could die by fire, but I've definitely drowned some kids.

[maxon]

I burnt a kid in TS2.

[Motoki]

Okay then I am just going completely senile like the nannies. 

Still, I had less fires in years of playing TS2 than I have in one month of playing TS3.

[Gus Smedstad]

The repetitive fires would be sort of entertaining if it didn't take so long for a sim to burn to death, and if the firemen/women didn't stand there staring at it for so long before they began dousing it.  It's actually a hassle to try and burn someone to death.  I had 3 fires in one day, catching several sims on fire, and never killed one.

From a design point of view, I understand the reasoning.  Death is a fairly catastrophic outcome, particularly for something that is going to happen every time you light a fireplace that hasn't been fireproofed.  A long delay in which your Sims can't do anything useful is a penalty with far less significant long-term consequences.

I can appreciate that, even if I don't care for how accidental death is nearly impossible in TS3.  Deliberate death by fire, drowning, electrocution or other means, sure, but true accidental death is nearly unknown.  I'm surprised that Motoki managed it, but I didn't bother with fireplaces myself until recently because I find them a waste of space and money in real life.

I might feel differently if resurrection weren't so readily available.  Granted, true resurrection through Ambrosia requires significant effort, but the playable ghost opportunity comes up all the time.

 - Gus

[Motoki]

I've had several accidental deaths actually. Another happened while repairing the computer and got electrocuted, but luckily, the sim in question was unlucky.

One got electrocuted from repairing the damned trash compactor too.

[zsangel]

I haven't had any fires, but that's because I don't use the fireplaces often.  And so far the worst my sims have done was burn a meal, but not set the stove on fire.

Burglaries are no issue for me either.  I think just about every time I've played a new family there's always one on the first night.  What cracks me up though is the burglar is usual the same one each time, as if there are no other criminals in my town.  Also that not only did she attempt to rob my sim family, but Dad was a cop and they lived right near the police station in Riverview.  Talk about dumb criminals. LOL.

[little_lark]

You know why else fireplaces suck? For some reason, at least on the one I was trying to customize, they rotate the patterns. This means that when I was trying to make a simple brick fireplace, all the brick patterns wound up vertical, which looks really stupid.  Anyone know how to avoid this short of making new patterns?

[Faizah]

To get a burglar, everyone has to be asleep or out. Since in my households, like in real life, I post someone on watch, I never see any burglars.

That would explain it. Most of mine have been single sim households, with next to nothing on the lot, so the sim only ever comes home to sleep and/or garden.

[SIMplyLisa]

I've had a stupid burglar show up in the middle of the day with a house full of awake Sims. The house had an alarm. It happened at the same time I was booting my emperor of evil sim out for beating on one of the ladies of the house.

I figured it was one of his work minions causing trouble on his behalf.

[Plum]

Your fireplaces are too cheap. Upgrade, and they hardly ever catch fire.

But the cheap ones are cute! And the most expensive one is HUGE!

I upgraded mine to fireproof after getting two fires in twelve hours.

[Gus Smedstad]

I upgraded mine to fireproof after getting two fires in twelve hours.

That was my experience as well.  I didn't pull the MTBF figure of 6 hours completely out of my ass.

 - Gus