Request, nay Demand! for a new FAQ

[Strangel]

I would LOVE to see something like this.

There are quite a few technically ignorant 'kids' on another board I follow, and I can't tell you how many times I've repeated some of these things. I also can't repeat how many times someone has come back and said, "I did <insert really stupid, game killing thing here> and I haven't had any problems. You must be wrong."

Then a week or two later, they're whining because their neighborhood is acting stupid. *sigh*

I believe I'm a member of the same board.. and I washed my hands of the Games Help section after getting EXACTLY that reply for the fifth time when trying to warn someone or explain why so-and-so just became "invisible".

When that happens, I take a breath, remember they're all 12.. and I am over thirty. Then I smirk and boot up sims.

That being said, when we first started out as simmers (the wife and I, her having previously been a TS1 addict) we did all SORTS of VBTs and as a result decimated several neighborhoods and in the end did some unknown thing so terribly wrong that the computer tried to untangle the program it was reading and just said "I give up."
Now the sims are on my computer.. and I have control of things. I also have MATY to absorb information from like the proverbial sponge.

Incidentally, what started our sim problems on her computer was her unwillingness to keep the Maxis Trio - all of which I was using for my sims. Sooo.. we, the blissfully unaware, lotted up all my sims and dropped the whole mess into her custom 'hood. Which she'd previously done a DAC in. Plus, she had Kitten Killer and god only knows what other UnAwesomeness in her downloads folder. Again, we had no idea what we were doing and we were both avid (rabid) download spree-ers without a worry in the world about where we were getting our content or what the hacks were doing. Even worse, we had fun with the Tombstone and various other unsavory sides of the programmers' back doors. We fully deserved the ass-whipping the computer handed back. LOL

[Orikes]

I think most of us have gone through that to some degree or another, Strangel. Perhaps not Pescado, but not all of us can be omniscient. I deleted characters, downloaded inhabited lots and definitely mucked up my first neighborhood.

Still, it would be nice to have a one-stop-shopping type of FAQ for the VBT things that people can do to their game. Then it'd be easier to point people in the right direction for some more astute sounding explanation than 'Smart people said you shouldn't do that because it's bad.' It might be over some of their heads, but the ones that get it would eventually not make the same mistake twice.

(It's not so much the kids with technical problems that bother me. What gets me are the ones who pop into various threads to tell you you're wrong because they've done that and it's never caused any problems in their neighborhood. Sometimes I wished Darwin's Law worked online.)

[Strangel]

I think most of us have gone through that to some degree or another, Strangel. Perhaps not Pescado, but not all of us can be omniscient. I deleted characters, downloaded inhabited lots and definitely mucked up my first neighborhood.

Still, it would be nice to have a one-stop-shopping type of FAQ for the VBT things that people can do to their game. Then it'd be easier to point people in the right direction for some more astute sounding explanation than 'Smart people said you shouldn't do that because it's bad.' It might be over some of their heads, but the ones that get it would eventually not make the same mistake twice.

(It's not so much the kids with technical problems that bother me. What gets me are the ones who pop into various threads to tell you you're wrong because they've done that and it's never caused any problems in their neighborhood. Sometimes I wished Darwin's Law worked online.)

I completely agree with ALL of this.. LMAO It's just those people that've stopped me from telling people the bad news when they talk about 'splodey symptoms.. because no sooner did I post than someone else piped up with "I do it all the time blah blah blah". Well guess what? The Wife does all kinds of wrongcrap to HER neighborhood (including DAC) and so far all that's happened is we had to systematically kill off a downloaded vampire family and occasionally, she gets an error and moves the family to a new lot.

MY custom Legacy 'hood? I do everything perfect and BOOM. I've lost five simselves. That's why Fond-Goo hasn't seen an update in so long. lol I started rebuilding in a new 'hood, only to have a couple of lots error out on planting the newly (and properly) cloned simselves in their lots. Plus, Cupid's Corner (my custom comm lot) seems to be spewing "fountain" errors on all sims who enter and occasionally infecting other lots. Sooooo.. Full reinstall, new NEW hood, fully wiped of characters, and I'm harvesting, cloning, and packaging all simselves and special townies to drop in. Again.

With an FAQ, at least I could say "LOOK! THAT'S THE SMART PEOPLE! I *told* you they said there was a GOOD reason not to do this shit!"
Plus, I get to rub Wifey's nose in it when she can't figure out why one of her families is freaking out at toilets and talking to walls. XD

[Sagana]

If you over-emphasize 'doom and gloom' for issues that don't actually blow up the game, people will tune you out. (general 'you's' there) as 'crying wolf' and not listen when the wolf really is at their door. MATY already has a bit of this reputation ('they say *everything* is bad over there.)

Marrying a cheerleader is an annoyance, not a game-breaker. Same with the Seasons family with the twins (Ottowhoever they are) - it's annoying but doesn't seem to cause a BFBVFS. The annoyances can be fun, when someone gives the llama mascot a story-background (furry warning.)

What exactly is the problem with Delete all Characters? My understanding, some time ago was that DAC makes it impossible to batch regenerate townies. I have 3 hoods where I used it, 2 of which I've been playing for months with no issues at all, but as I never intended to batch (or even single-up) create townies, that was never an issue for me.

Plus, Cupid's Corner (my custom comm lot) seems to be spewing "fountain" errors on all sims who enter and occasionally infecting other lots.

If you've got fountain errors chances are you have Targa's backdrop. If you do, take that out, it's broke.

[J. M. Pescado]

Marrying a cheerleader is an annoyance, not a game-breaker. Same with the Seasons family with the twins (Ottowhoever they are) - it's annoying but doesn't seem to cause a BFBVFS. The annoyances can be fun, when someone gives the llama mascot a story-background (furry warning.)

Marrying a cheerleader is a harmless annoyance: Other than annoying the hell out of you, it doesn't actually have any negative side effects. The Ottomas brokenness, however, actually damages data integrity.

I suppose we could terror-alert the various wrong things you can do.

What exactly is the problem with Delete all Characters? My understanding, some time ago was that DAC makes it impossible to batch regenerate townies. I have 3 hoods where I used it, 2 of which I've been playing for months with no issues at all, but as I never intended to batch (or even single-up) create townies, that was never an issue for me.

DAC is "incomplete". It's not WRONG to use it, but it does not "finish the job", so to speak, and leaves behind some dangling data garbage in your otherwise cleaned neighborhood.

Also, there's a clear distinction between "neighborhood level" corruption (very bad!) and merely instance level (lot) corruption. Instance-level corruption is generally repairable by simply destroying the corrupted lot. Neighborhood-level corruption is junking up your neighborhood files with janky data.

[Sagana]

The Ottomas brokenness, however, actually damages data integrity.

How? I still don't understand how that's different than a sim that has an affair so the parent is not the 2nd adult in the household? I dumped the Ottomas', they're ugly anyway, but I've got lots of simmies born on the wrong side of the blanket.

I suppose we could terror-alert the various wrong things you can do.

Probably a good idea.

DAC is "incomplete".

Dangling SWAFs then? Usually when I do something that causes that, I get kiddos that have weird wants and the like, but I'm several generations into this hood (probably honesly there's only one that I play regularly) and haven't seen that either. If it's not SWAFs, I guess it's just a matter of still having too many files (as they weren't deleted properly) and I can expect weird corruption when I hit the limit?

[Khan of Wyrms]

I, for another one, would certainly like to see more detailed explanations of exactly why certain things have been blacklisted as dangerous to the game.  You can put me in that category of people who have done some of these things a long time ago without serious consequences, so far*.  I am not going to claim that I don't believe these allegations, but I am very interested in more specific details, for obvious reasons.  Generally speaking, tossing platitudes in the manner of, "Doing 'X' is VBT, m'kay," and pointing people towards other forum topics where many others are posting the same is not really useful or making a point.  Forgive me and others for not having read every single post in every topic here since the site began, but I do believe that this information would be most useful to be organized in one place with thoughtful clarification.  Then someone could say, "Doing 'X' is VBT, m'kay, read the FAQ," and link the relevant information.

I have never been one to accept statements like, "'Such-and-such' is true because I/<someone> said so, and I/they am/are right because I/they am/are great/awesome/God (et.al.)."  MATY heresy perhaps, but I am certain there are others who feel the same way.  Having all of the information on the VBT's located in one handy FAQ would certainly be most awesome, and most useful for poking people who are too stupid to read it.  Belittling someone for doing something the game allows without even activating a 'cheat' before they have been clued in that it might be bad is not awesome behavior, in my opinion, especially if the only reason given is 'because'.  If the information is located and explained in an obvious FAQ, then let the abasement and condescension begin.

Then again, helping people or being friendly is something I am only inconsistently capable of, with some effort, so I am unsure why I would think anyone else should undertake this endeavor.  It would still be awesome, though.


*No serious consequences with TS2, however, SimPE is completely unusable.

[Strangel]

The first time I heard about SWAFs was when I was a fledgeling (sp?) MATYer. I saw people talking about something called "DAC" and how it was a "VBT" because it dangled "SWAF"...
Several searches later, I knew a DAC from a VBT and a BFBvFS.. and that something called SWAF could be deleted with SimPE - a program that, at that time, I'd never been able to figure out.

Definitely, an idjit-friendly FAQ of "Bad, m'kay?" and WHY it's bad would be great. Especially for most of the simming community (twelve) and the adults (me) that can't decipher the codes of Long Time MATYs. Arr.

[Orikes]

I suppose we could terror-alert the various wrong things you can do.

Terror alert rankings would be a wonderful addition to this type of FAQ. It would help explaining to what degree people should panic when they start experiencing problems.

[syberspunk]

Marrying a cheerleader is an annoyance, not a game-breaker. Same with the Seasons family with the twins (Ottowhoever they are) - it's annoying but doesn't seem to cause a BFBVFS. The annoyances can be fun, when someone gives the llama mascot a story-background (furry warning.)

Marrying a cheerleader is a harmless annoyance: Other than annoying the hell out of you, it doesn't actually have any negative side effects. The Ottomas brokenness, however, actually damages data integrity.

Question about the Ottomans.  I was following that thread in the Oops... forum, and what I got from it was that the "problem" was fixable.  All you had to do was point the pregger tokens to correct NIDs for the father or something like that.  Did I misunderstand that?  Or is there something else that is even more broken about them?  If this FAQ is ever put together, I think there should be a brief section explaining what sort of things are borked with certain Maxis EA pre-made playables, and there should be references to baratrons thread about bad genetics and how to fix them, as well as references to (or recommendations to use) SaraMK's Clean and Empty templates.  And maybe a brief explanation of how to fix the Ottomans using SimPE or what not.  Sure there are plenty of people out there who might be too scared to use SimPE, but then there are some of us who are willing to take the chance and somewhat reasonably capable of fixing things if given sufficiently detailed instructions.

I suppose we could terror-alert the various wrong things you can do.

I third this motion.  In some cases you could "politely" recommend avoiding things, and in other cases you should prod with pointy sticks and threaten with pointing and laughter should someone fail to listen.

Ste

[Soylent Sim]

Might as well start putting down some of the things for when we get around to an actual FAQ 2.0 thread.  Add or correct as as you feel the need.

Do not delete sims:  Whether from the simbin or with the DeleteAllCharacters cheat.  The problem is that what looks like one sim is actually many different files; the DNA is different from the relationship information is different from the wants/fears information etc.  Deleting a sim from the bin or with the DAC cheat will only delete some of those files, leaving stray bits that may override the normal data for some other sim born/created later.  On top of that, all memories and gossip about the deleted sim do reference files that are actually gone, so you will have corruption as the game gets confused.  Note, however, that killing sims doesn't cause problems.  All the required information for a dead sim is kept in the right places.

Mind your hacks:  This may sound funny coming from a site that produces a lot of hacks and other custom content.  However, not all hacks are created equal.  Some are just poorly made, some worked well for a given EP but don't work properly with newer games, and sometimes two hacks that cause no problems on their own will conflict and cause problems when they're together.  The modders at MATY can only be expected to take care of their own creations, so make sure to look for hacks that might be causing problems before asking for help, and ask the person who made it for help.  (If someone else could explain the details of binary searching and what hacks are most likely to cause problems, I'd be appreciative.)  On a related note, occasionally see how large your downloads folder is.  While a large downloads folder by itself won't cause any bugs, it will cause your game to slow down if it's lager than half the RAM available on your system.

Do not move an occupied house into the lots and houses bin.  Similarly, do not move a downloaded occupied house into your home neighborhood:  If you've already done this before, you might have an idea what it does to your sims.  In actuality, it's worse than that.  When you move an occupied lot into the lot bin, all relationships and memories dealing with them are severed, and instead attached to dummy files that are added to your game.  At the same time, every relationship or memory dealing with a sim outside the lot creates a dummy file that's attached to the lot, and is added to any neighborhood the occupied lot is added to.  Doing this once just severs outside relationships for anyone in the house in question, and adds invisible junk data to the neighborhood.  Doing this repeatedly can create enough junk data to render the neighborhood unplayable.  It is possible to take special steps to clean up a saved lot like this and make it safe for download.  Notably, the Kim and Kat residences that came with Pets are safe to add.  Some other downloaded lots might be similarly cleaned.  However, unless you know for a fact that the lot is cleaned up, it probably isn't and will cause junk file problems down the line.

[SaraMK]

So who's writing this thing? Or is everyone just agreeing that it needs to be written?

I'd do it, but the problem is that I mostly just know a single solution to most of these problems, and some of them I don't know any solutions to because I have simply accepted that they are VBT's and have never had to deal with the aftermath. Also, I'm not sure that I do know all the nitpicky details of why all these things are so bad. I guess it could be written one piece at a time, with people submitting details where they see fit.

Too bad it can't be done Wiki style. Now that  would be awesome, with the ability to link words like DAC to expanded explanations that n00bs could click on and everyone else would not have to bother with.

[syberspunk]

Yeah, that would be an excellent idea.  Wiki style would be neat.  Too bad we can't just cut and paste from the various excellent resources we have here at MATY already.  I know it's been brought up before, but maybe there should be a MATY centric wiki, rather than a Sims 2 wiki, since that wiki doesn't seem to be getting developed any further...

So... in the spirit of h*r, why not have our own MATY wiki, complete or replete with snarky, sardonic rhetoric.

Our wiki could be More Awesome Than everyone else's wiki!  It would be the definitive wiki, to Rule THEM ALL!!! Muhahahahahahaa!!!111oneone

Or you know, just for fun and mostly to amuse ourselves I suppose.

Ste

[Zazazu]

While a large downloads folder by itself won't cause any bugs, it will cause your game to slow down if it's lager than half the RAM available on your system.

Whoa, whoa whoa! This is news to me. How is it that several people here have folders upwards of 13GB (side product of the Compressorizer thread is the inherent folder envy) and still run the game, then? I know they can't have 26 GB of RAM. I have 2 gigs, folder is now around 1.8 again because all compressing and purging did was make me feel free to get more stuff, options all maxed, and my game runs quickly and smoothly, except for a bit of slowdown during snow.

[Orikes]

Question about the Ottomans.  I was following that thread in the Oops... forum, and what I got from it was that the "problem" was fixable. 

From what I got out of the thread on the Ottamas family, the way to 'fix' them was to nuke the pregnancy before Samantha has the twins. Once you do that, the family is safe to have in the neighborhood.

If there's a way to actually fix the babies once they're born, I don't know.

[akatonbo]

Speaking of, is there a hack out there less enormous and kitchen-sinky than inSim that allows cancellation of Sim pregnancies? Not that I have trouble with unwanted ones, but it'd be useful to have a tidy way to do it if I ever need it. (I actually do have a plan that it could be handy for, although since it's a PLAN, I have already thought of an alternate solution.)

[Orikes]

Pescado's most recent version of the lot debugger has something in it that does it. That's what I used.

[Paperbladder]

You see, I tried making MATY Wiki once.  The problem with it was that it wasn't hosted on MATY's servers but on free servers since I'm broke (Wikia probably wouldn't have hosted it).  This wasn't so bad but I believe only one or two other people even bothered to edit it.  I ended up breaking it one day in frustration towards the MATY community.

If there's going to be a Wiki, it's going to have to be hosted on MATY.  I'm not going to get free servers again since those always have ads (or lack the necessary software), and it's doubtful that people here are willing to put $10 a month for a wiki.  The software that should be used is called MediaWiki and it's damn simple to install.  Of course, we could have the same Encyclopedia on SMF by adding a forum and putting a bunch of explanations of DAC, SWAF, and the like.

[J. M. Pescado]

Pescado's most recent version of the lot debugger has something in it that does it. That's what I used.

Did it work? Some people complained that it didn't.

[Orikes]

It worked just fine for me. I can't remember if I had to do it twice on her or not (I did this probably about a month ago). Initially her baby bump didn't 'disappear', but once I had her take a shower, she reverted back to normal everyday clothes.

[professorbutters]

Unofficial non-Awesome suggestion to add?  "Messing with certain NPCs (i.e. Grim, Crumplebottom, etc) is a very bad idea; don't add them to your household, knock them up, etc."

That might seem obvious but I've seen some pix of an added pregnant Grim that curdled my blood--and what's worse, the poster actually *thanked* me for suggesting it, which I didn't. I think it was a misunderstanding of the use of the Tombstone or InSim's Grimpollination to get a playable preggers. . .but you'd be surprised how many people seem to think this is clever and cool.

PB

[syberspunk]

SOoooo... how's the FAQ coming along?














Anybody?


Ste

[Insanity Prelude]

Wait, changing first names is bad? And saving while a Sim's on the phone (which I know I've probably done at some point or another)?

... I'm f*cked then. :/

[dizzy]

(If someone else could explain the details of binary searching and what hacks are most likely to cause problems, I'd be appreciative.)

A binary search simply involves moving half of your hacks. Here's a simplified specification:

1) Observe problem condition and make a note of it.
2) Quit the game.
3) Move half your hacks in the "My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2" folder to some other folder. This other folder should always be a new folder.
4) Restart the game.
5) If you observe the problem condition again, go to step 2.
6) If you do *not* observe the problem condition, quit the game and swap the location of the most current set of hack halves you moved. Then go to step 4 (or 3 if you feel confident in your file management skills).
7) Once you only one hack left in the game, make note of that hack and see FAQ about reporting bugs etc.

[SaraMK]

Wait, changing first names is bad? And saving while a Sim's on the phone (which I know I've probably done at some point or another)?

... I'm f*cked then. :/

According to Pescado, if you change first names in SimPE, it's not changed everywhere and some file somewhere will still have the old name. Changing last names in SimPE is fine. Changing first names using in-game tools like lot debugger, InSIM, etc., is fine. Lot debugger can also change last names.

Saving the lot and exiting while a sim is on a cell phone corrupts the lot and you'll never be able to enter it again. (Has Maxis ever even tried  to fix this?)