How is the new OFB patch working for everyone?

[summerbliz]

I installed the patch, and I'm very frustrated with the results.  Prior to downloading the patch, I could delete just about anything (in the game) from recolors of Maxis items or custom content. Now, after installing the patch, I can't delete anything. I've been to the BBS, to no avail.  I sent a message to Maxis, and they replied with  a lame excuse.  I've had it!!!! I'm uninstalling OFB, and I'm going to re-install the game without the patch.  Is there anyone else having this particular problem?

[idtaminger]

I have only one issue with the patch.

Before i installed it, i could select multiple members of a houslehold to go to a community lot, and leave some at home. Now, i can either go as 1 single sim, or the whole household.
I liked it that i could bring the father and the eldest teenager to the business, and leave wife and two children at home.
bah!

I think this is a hack doing this. I think it's Syberspunk's or something. Maybe he'll update it for the patch.

[Ruann]

There are a lot posting at the BBS saying they have had problems with their games since installing the patch.  Quite frankly I havent encountered any dramas (and I was trying to get the stuck at community lot bug) so I agree with Ziggy if it aint broke dont bother.  Apparently maxis is working on a second patch to fix the things they didnt get with the first.

Why can't they just get it right the first time? Is it because they a) don't listen, b) don't care cos they know we're gonna fork out lots of gelt anyways or, c) both? And knowing this why do we still suck it up? Sheesh, talk about suckers being born every day. 

Patching software isn't just a matter of going "oh, that broke?  here's the fix!" and being done with it.  The speed with which this patch came out means that it was in progress when the game shipped.  When a game goes gold, QA doesn't stop.  All it means is that the people in charge of the project felt that it was "complete enough" to ship out and that there should only be minor glitches remaining, if any.  When the patch we just received was going through QA, they were probably already looking for other things to fix and writing those fixes.  Personally, I think most games that are released need about three patches to get "right".  It's not a matter of them not listening or being incompetent, it's a matter of having finite resources to test things with.  The playerbase will always find things that are missed.

That said, there is very clear evidence that EA needs to rethink their regression testing practices, because they routinely muck that portion of it up.

[jeffreyc]

Great for me, finally my takeout food store can restock! 

[Sagana]

At least they do patch. If you buy a game system game, whatever you got originally is what you'll always have, no matter how buggy it is. I like the game, so yeah as long as it's still something I like, I'm going to buy it.

[BlueSoup]

I like the game, so yeah as long as it's still something I like, I'm going to buy it.

Me too.  I personally am happy they don't seem to be taking the lacksadaisical (sp?) attitude they had with Uni, and they are releasing patches without the entire community of literate Simmers screaming on a twice-daily basis for months for them. 

[Ambular]

I've got it installed but I haven't got around to playing the game since...considering how quickly this one was released, though, I really wasn't expecting it to be more than an emergency band-aid to stop entire families and lots from getting stuck or vanishing into black holes.  I was rather surprised to see how many bugs it did (allegedly) fix, many of which I hadn't heard of.

Despite what we've heard, I have a sneaking suspicion Maxis deliberately declared the mailbox and its strip of grass off-limits to prevent the lowest common denominator from mucking up their lots beyond repair by deleting critical items, so if a fix is forthcoming, it most likely won't be from them.  And as much as it annoys, I can see their point...for every reasonably intelligent player who knows that (a) you don't delete mailboxes or  garbage cans because it screws up your game, MORON! and (b) there's a buyable collection available to replace them if you do, there must be hundreds if not thousands of complete dunderheads who deluge Maxis with their wails of horror after discovering the shiny Move Objects cheat for the first time...

[Renatus]

Re: The thousands of complete dunderheads - perhaps, but I doubt they're the majority. There's an old adage about 80% of the problems coming from 20% of the customers, and after working computer repair for a few years I'd say this seems to bear true. So yay, it may have been a (relatively) few complete nitwits who will now find some other way to screw up their game who got a useful feature removed for the rest of us (unless it wasn't just a complete muck-up by the programmers).

[Pegasys]

I have only one issue with the patch.

Before i installed it, i could select multiple members of a houslehold to go to a community lot, and leave some at home. Now, i can either go as 1 single sim, or the whole household.
I liked it that i could bring the father and the eldest teenager to the business, and leave wife and two children at home.
bah!

See since NL I've had to have the whole household or only one go to a community lot. I thought maybe they changed it because of the new "group" option in NL.

[MissDoh]

I don't seem to have that problem.  There was an household in which there was 3 members.  I use the taxi in the transportation option and choose multiple Sims.  When the taxi arrived on the lot it ask who wanted to go by having a pop-up for each member on the lot.  I sent 2 out of 3 members of that house with no problems, they were not part of a group.

[toriamos]

I never had an option to choose which sims got to go in the taxi it was one or all.

[sara_dippity]

I have only one issue with the patch.

Before i installed it, i could select multiple members of a houslehold to go to a community lot, and leave some at home. Now, i can either go as 1 single sim, or the whole household.
I liked it that i could bring the father and the eldest teenager to the business, and leave wife and two children at home.
bah!

I thought it was the phone hack that made that possible. Did you have it and then remove it to install the patch?
So the food vanishing from restocking it is fixed right? Anyone tested this?
I'm going to try deleting uniforms next time I play, though my husband and I trade computer days and his is tonight, since our aniversary is tomarrow, I think he would get upset if I played. So I don't get to test for a few days. I'm still upset over a lot poofing, anxious to know if it's fixed.

[Renatus]

It was the phone hack that made that possible, I have no idea if it works like that anymore. If not, it can be worked around easily by having one member invite the other family members you want to go on an outing 'just for fun'. If you forget to end the outing once they get back it's not a big deal, it seems to end by itself once they go to sleep.

[Paperbladder]

I've installed OFBp1 and other than the fact that my sims reset there were no problems.  Then again, this patch really didn't mess with anything that we're aware of other than lots dissapearing and the "Do Chores" option with the servo.  I also did notice that the game loads slightly quicker now (I replaced the startup music with custom, and I notice now that the select neighborhood menu pops up about 15 seconds before the song ended and it played through the entire song before.  The song is about a minute long.)

I don't know what to think of EA anymore, sometimes they do something like this and other times they won't do anything and say "It'll be fixed in the next expansion" and we know that they don't fix things with expansions.

[cyperangel]

I do have the phonehack installed, the latest version from before the MATY implosion. And no, i didnt remove any custom content before patching.

[ElviraGoth]

The Piano has, to my knowledge, never been fixed despite claims to the contrary.

The piano was fixed for me with the first patch.  I took out the pianofix hack and haven't needed it.  The piano is still fun for my sims with the OFB patch installed, as well.

Don't know why it works ok for me and not for others, though.

[Elvie]

I don't have piano problems anymore, either, and I haven't used pianofix in ages.

[t r a c y]

I installed the patch, and I'm very frustrated with the results.  Prior to downloading the patch, I could delete just about anything (in the game) from recolors of Maxis items or custom content. Now, after installing the patch, I can't delete anything. I've been to the BBS, to no avail.  I sent a message to Maxis, and they replied with  a lame excuse.  I've had it!!!! I'm uninstalling OFB, and I'm going to re-install the game without the patch.  Is there anyone else having this particular problem?

i have this problem as well - no longer able to delete recolours for custom content or maxis made crap. others are reporting this problem over at bellamobilia and a few other forums too.   this is a seriously annoying turn of events, in that i need to house clean my downloads regularly and doing it in-game is neccessary.  i guess i will have to unistall, i don't feel confident in relying on maxis to fix this.  this is definitely the last time i install a patch without first waiting a few weeks to find out what new problems crop up !

but would uninstalling OFB and then reinstalling without the patch make any difference - does the patch change core game files that would remain effected even after uninstaling OFB ?

[Wolfee]

I installed the patch, and I'm very frustrated with the results.  Prior to downloading the patch, I could delete just about anything (in the game) from recolors of Maxis items or custom content. Now, after installing the patch, I can't delete anything. I've been to the BBS, to no avail.  I sent a message to Maxis, and they replied with  a lame excuse.  I've had it!!!! I'm uninstalling OFB, and I'm going to re-install the game without the patch.  Is there anyone else having this particular problem?

i have this problem as well - no longer able to delete recolours for custom content or maxis made crap. others are reporting this problem over at bellamobilia and a few other forums too.   this is a seriously annoying turn of events, in that i need to house clean my downloads regularly and doing it in-game is neccessary.  i guess i will have to unistall, i don't feel confident in relying on maxis to fix this.  this is definitely the last time i install a patch without first waiting a few weeks to find out what new problems crop up !

Wow I hadn't noticed that problem but then again I didn't try deleting anything. I downloaded the patch with all my hacks  and so far have experienced nothing bad. I hadn't had any bugs occur in my game but I downloaded the patch anyway to be on the safe side..

As for resetting my Sims I have no idea. Forgetting I had  installed the patch I had decided to move one of my Sim families to another house (to the house created by BlueSoup, thanks again Blue my Sims love it!) so I wouldn't have noticed it anyway since they all reset when you do that.
 
It's kind of funny that the patch fixes the social bunny kill. Was there a problem with that ,that I wasn't aware of? I had yet come across anyone mentioning it, oh well guess I'm  worldly enough, I don't visit the BBS. They're the type that would seek out and do that sort of thing 

[BlueSoup]

As for resetting my Sims I have no idea. Forgetting I had  installed the patch I had decided to move one of my Sim families to another house (to the house created by BlueSoup, thanks again Blue my Sims love it!) so I wouldn't have noticed it anyway since they all reset when you do that.

I'm glad you like it.  I've been thinking of going on another building spree. 

[MissDoh]

I never had an option to choose which sims got to go in the taxi it was one or all.

In order for the "multiple Sims" option to show you must select the "transportation" option on the phone and then select "taxi" in the transportation sub-menu or the "invite a sim to a community lot" option, when the taxi will arrive on your lot you will have options to bring multiple Sims if the other sims are at home when the taxi arrive, if the other Sims are at work you won't be able to bring them with your Sim.

It will not work if you use the "call taxi" option.

If on the phone you do not have the transportation option something is definitely wrong in your game.

[Wolfee]

As for resetting my Sims I have no idea. Forgetting I had  installed the patch I had decided to move one of my Sim families to another house (to the house created by BlueSoup, thanks again Blue my Sims love it!) so I wouldn't have noticed it anyway since they all reset when you do that.

I'm glad you like it.  I've been thinking of going on another building spree. 

Great , keep them coming. now that I have that hack that allows you have familes larging then 8 per household, I 'm addicted to having very Large families.  That family I moved into you house has 16 members and growing. I could of course create my own but all my houses come out looking ugly. I'm not kidding,  I have no talent for building like you do. So I don't even go out and try to build them anymore. However, if you are ever in the need for a really fugly looking house, please feel free to ask me for one of mine

[anelca]

i haven't played widely since installing the patch but have 2 things, one of which was pointed out on MTS2 and now here, about not being able to delete recolours in game
the other being when sims are reading books or newspapers, they constantly lower and raise the reading material
oh, and one of my sims was about to write in her diary and clutched it to her chest with a shocked look on her face for ages and a red X over the bubble pic of her housemate. whether this is normal because her friend had done something controversial i don't know, but it's not something i've seen before

[dusty]

and one of my sims was about to write in her diary and clutched it to her chest with a shocked look on her face for ages and a red X over the bubble pic of her housemate. whether this is normal because her friend had done something controversial i don't know, but it's not something i've seen before

That's happened before. She's scared her housemate'll try and read her diary or something.

I installed it last night and played for a short time with no major issues, but I didn't really do anything except grow a baby up to toddler.

I have no idea if this is patch related or something else, but my sim invited a professor over and wasn't able to offer her a makeover with the salon chair.  Why should that be?

[J. M. Pescado]

That's happened before. She's scared her housemate'll try and read her diary or something.

The logic of that really confuses me. I mean, why would you scribble things in a book for everyone to see, then try to pretend they won't see it? Wouldn't it make more sense to intentionally fill it with lies and deceit designed to bring about the painful and gruesome demise of anyone trying to exploit it?