More Awesome Than You!

Four days ago I sent a family of 3 sims to the most expensive hotel at Three Lakes for a well needed vacation with 2 friends who happend to be my self sim and his wife. Everything was fine but then I had to go somewere so I saved and quit. Today I wen't back to play the family and I get build and buy mode as if no ones there.  The neighberhood thinks there there and there house directed me there also. But the game thinks the hotel is empty once its loded.  Is there anyway I can save this family and there guests? I have all expansions except AL and All SP except Ikea. The only hack I have is to make ponds reflective.

Yes, you can, but you will lose all the redecorations you made in this island.

Enter the game, and from the main hood view - click on the Vacation sign at the upper line. You will get the pictures of the three islands.

Highlight the certain island (in this case -  Three Lakes). In the right side of it you will see a trashcan symbol. Click on it, and this island will be deleted.

You will find your sims in their house (and the guests - in their lot).

Now you can create again the vacation island, but you will get the original one.

@empires: Please do not take Gali's advice and delete your vacation neighbourhood. You will most likely break something beyond repair. Please wait till someone who knows what they are talking about comes along.

Thanks for the "compliment" - I presume that you know what are you talking about.

It was tested successfully by other players. But...may be I really don't know what I am talking about, as the big know-it-all witch says - do it on your own risk.

Well Gali, if the sims are somewhere in the vacation hood, what do you think might happen if it were deleted? I don't know, I've never been stupid enough to try such a stunt.

I am not claiming I know the answer, but I'm 99% sure the answer does not lie in deletion.

(http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c230/gali123/BV1.jpg)

(http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c230/gali123/BV2.jpg)

You're quoting the BBS on MATY!?!

So what? Is it forbidden? - Trenues (Trenues2)  from the Sporum advice almost non-stop in the BBS. She gives great advices, and I would be proud to quote her here.

ONE person - on the BBS - said it worked. Not "other players". Who knows what else they did. Have you tried it yourself? Seriously, do it at your own risk. Make sure you backup first.


This person is your "experts"? Why not try leaving it for the MATY experts who have been doing this for years now, instead of bringing second-hand unverified information here?

Would there be a way to save them in simPE? That program seems to do almost anything you might need it to do.

Dunno. I don't tend to have problems like this. You could look at the lot debugger, there are lots of options on that. Or you could search to see if someone before has had a similar problem or you could make a backup first and then try Gali's suggestion. Up to you.

I had the same thing but luckily I had a toddler back at the house so it let me re-enter and my sims came home a few seconds later. If this happened to me in the scenario you've detailed, I know what I would try, it's up to you whether you would want to give it a go, it would mean losing the vacation lot that they were at and also losing their home, but I don't think there's a way around that. I use Insimenator, but you can use any summoning method, if you prefer to play without hacks you can use boolprop and spawn the Tombstone of L and D and it would work the same way, but just take longer.

If you don't have 'testing cheats' auto-on then before you enter a household at your neighboorhood screen open the cheat console and type 'boolprop testingcheatsenabled true' and enter. Enter another residential lot in the same hood (it needs to have at least one more slot for a new household member). Once in, shift and click on any household member and look for the pie menu entry 'spawn', click on that and then from the next menu choose 'Tombstone of L & D'. It will appear next to the sim and be in the guise of a gravestone. Click on the gravestone and choose 'Add neighbor to family...' this will then bring up a menu of ALL sims in the corresponding hood, NPC's, townies and playables. Click MORE and keep clicking MORE until you see the name of an adult member of the lost house. Beware, that it only lists by first name so hopefully the names of your sims are not a common name used by other NPC's and townies. When you see one of their names click on it and that member will be added to the household. Once you've done that you can just move them out, set them up on their own lot and then repeat the process for the rest of the lost household in the new lot.

I use the Insimenator, which would make it easier as the Summoner that is part of that hack splits the family into family name so you can go direct to the missing person/s without having to flick through 10 billion pages of pie menu, I'm not sure if Inge's telporter shrub would do the same as I've never used it, maybe someone else would know the answer to that.

This is only my take on this, if anyone else has a quicker, easier, better way of retriving lost sims I would love to know in case it ever happens to me again. Whatever you decide to do I hope you get your family back, it's most annoying when you lose sims through stupid glitches like this. Good luck !

I vaguely recall reading similar problems when BV was new, so you could try using the search option and see what the advice was 12 months ago.

You could also try using the magic wand, found in the hacks directory (http://moreawesomethanyou.com/ffs/index.php?dir=al%2Fhacks%2F).  From its RTFM:

As an alternative to TrueLou's advice, you can get the teleporter cat from Simlogical (http://www.simlogical.com/sl/Sims2Pages/Sims2_Teleporters.htm). It's dead useful. Go to a playable family, buy and click on the cat. Choose the last name of the family and summon each member who is missing. After you have everyone there, click on the cat and choose to add them to the family. You can then move them out on their own.

As for the vacation lot, I'm honestly not sure. You could try getting the magicwand from the hack directory here (www.moreawesomethanyou.com/ffs/YOUR LATEST EP INITIALS/hacks). Enter the lot in build mode, choose the "wand box" from misc/misc, place it and delete it. Then retry. I'd just bulldoze it. Ugly-ass lots, the lot of 'em.

You could also try moving the family back into the Sim Bin, in Neighborhood view. I had to do that recently, after I installed AL while a family were on vacation. I could play them at their vacation home, but when the vacation ended their home lot simply would not load. I moved them into the Sim Bin and then straight back into their house. I had to refurnish the house but that's not so bad in the long run.

Do you think that if I went to my self sims house it would force every one back. I only sent me and my wife as guests and I have 2 kids at the house. But Im not sure that it would save the host family.

I had this happen to me, only it was when a teen snuck (Is it snuck? What IS the past tense of Sneak? Sneaked sounds stupid...) out with another teen. It was funny, because the teen she snuck out with was Zach Addy from the TV Show Bones. If anybody watches that show, they'll get why that's funny. Caniblistic Gormagon Snuck out with a girl and she never came back. The whole "Three lakes hotel ATE my sims" thing is what brought me here in the first place. So I used the lot debugger to debug all off-lot sims. It worked, she showed up burried in my basement, and once I MoveObjectson-ed her out, all worked great! However, I don't know if this will work for you.

BTW, Witch REALLY seems to hate Gali. Why? The advice seemed to make sense to me. Then again, I've blown up my game like, 4 times, forcing reinstall. Heh heh.  :-X

Ill try the lot debugger later tonight and report back.

1. There's history.
2. The advice would potentially cause problems due to the fact that it could damage the character files in question.

Why didn't you address this comment to me?

And; what Zazazu said.

Plus, there's a professional pride here. MATY is known for good and accurate gameplay information. Posters like Gali and Zephyr Zodiac have very little, if any, understanding of how the game works under the hood and tend to recommend things that will stuff up files that are out of sight. I don't offer advice or information about another poster's problem unless I'm more than 90% sure I have solved the same problem or have seen a tested  answer before. I'm certainly not advocating myself as one of the experts. Enthusiastic amateur is more like.

I have just enough understanding of programming to make fairly accurate guesses as to what not to do, so I rarely get weird problems other than the normal EAxis glitches. I'm also a cautious player and don't download really experimental hacks until they've been thoroughly tested. Gali is right about one thing, kudos to all the players that do do testing, though the smart ones do it in testing hoods of course - which is what I tend to do also if unsure. Additionally I don't use hacks that change core game files, I think the risk of borkage increases quite dramatically with those hacks.

So should I try the lot debugger or wait for someone else to answer? and thank you Witch for helping by pointing out what not to do. I can only imagine what would happen if I had this on the official site... Or even worse call tech suport and get some Indian lady saying "You need reinstall! If not work REINSTALL! If still not work buy new game then REINSTALL!"

It's a good idea to back up your neighborhoods periodically, so why not do that first?  Find your neighborhood files in My Documents and copy it to a disk or another location on your computer as a backup. 

To retrieve your sims, try the Magic Wand, which is accessed in the game only through the collections files.  I don't think the lot debugger will do anything for you as it only works in Live mode, so your next option would be Inge's teleporter cat or visiting the home lot.  Experimentation is fine if you've backed up the 'hood, as you can just replace the whole thing if you have additional problems.

Ok so Im goign to try the magic wand now. Ill report the resaults.

I don't think the magic wand covers this particular case, but I will look into it. Never had this actually happen post-OFB, though.

I didn't address it to you so that it was left open for anyone to answer, including you. I will shut up now, as I don't really want to get into this. I know I'm non-awesome. I love hacks, and like I said before, I have BFBVFS-ed my game about 4 times.

Don't panic, it was just a simple question. I was curious to know why you would want to ask anyone else about the way I felt about something. It seemed really odd.

Wow, it seems that I have the worst borked Hotel related problem anyones reported as no one knows what to do.

empies, if JM says he's looking into it, then you are sure to get some kind of accurate answer. Patience.

I am having patience because I don't even really like the family it's just a family a friend of mine likes to play. I've never even played the family with out the friend at my house, but  now my phones stopped working when I haven't added or deleted anything sense the last time I played and sent the family to the Sim eating hotel.

Incidentally, deleting a vacation hood will most likely make dbhash out of your neighborhood save. While it may not produce any outright errors, your internal files are going to look like someone like your intestines after you eat a grenade. Suffice it to say that grenade-eating is best left to professional grenade-eaters.

I thought you said somewhere that deleting subhoods doesn't delete sims so is safe to do (maybe in reference to deleting extra Uni hoods)? Not that it would do any good as you'd still have all those extra uni characters, but still not bad? But I'm pretty sure that was pre-BV. Did BV change something or am I misremembering?

If I recall, that's true of deleting UNI subhoods if and only if you have another UNI subhood around for the dormies to be shuffled into by the game, or something to that effect. It might be true of BV subhoods and others as well, but definitely only if you have another one. More than likely, though, it's not possible at all.

I had this same problem with one of my own custom-created vacation neighborhoods.  It swallowed my very favorite Sim and I couldn't get her back.  Being a noob and an Asinine Airhead, I didn't know any better than to follow the same advice from the BBS.  I deleted my whole vacation 'hood, and lost HOURS of work I had spent setting it up.  But my Sim did appear back at her home lot in the base neighborhood, so I thought it was fixed.

However, when I tried it again I could suddenly enter the lot just fine, but the BV locals started duplicating themselves every day, even though I had installed the BV patch AND the Anti-redundancy Hack.  Then at the end of the vacation, the shuttle didn't show up to take the Sim home.  I waited a full three Sim days past the end of the vacation, no shuttle.  I finally discovered I could have the Sim call for the shuttle, so I tried that.  And it still didn't come.  I ended up deleting the vacation neighborhood again, just to get my Sim home.

And then, of course, my neighborhood was flooded with duplicate character files.

The ONLY way I finally solved the whole mess was to uninstall and re-install, then install the patch and Anti-redundancy Hack again.  Now it seems to be fixed.  But that's a pretty drastic step.  I hope, for your sake, there's another way.   :)

As almost everybody here is in panic, I decided to test the event myself, choosing quite large neighbourhood (Pleasantview).

My conclusion is, that the "devil is not so scary", and it's not a big  grenade - may be a small adding on the "weight".

Phase 1:

The test was done with the Caliente sisters. Nina bought a vacation house in the Three Lakes, and booked a vacation. The cab came normally.

(http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c230/gali123/Report/govac.jpg)

They went to a com lot, and met several people.

(http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c230/gali123/Report/gocom.jpg)

After taking a tour, they came back home, and dig for treasures.

(http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c230/gali123/Report/dig.jpg)

At this moment, I saved the game, exited, and decided to delete the hood.

Before deleting the hood, I counted the number of the characters showing in SimPe - 201 characters.

Deleted the vacation hood, and tried to enter Caliente's house. Could enter without any problem. The vacation cab came normally, and they returned home.

(http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c230/gali123/Report/afterdelvachood.jpg)


Phase 2:

Openned a new vacation hood.

Nina didn't have anymore the ownship on the house. Orderred again to buy a vacation lot, after pasting the packaged previous decorated lot. Orderred to book vacation, the carpool arrived as usual.

(http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c230/gali123/Report/govac2.jpg)

Again send them to com lot. New characters appeared.

(http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c230/gali123/Report/newlocals.jpg)

But known locals, whom the calientes greeted and taked to, from the previous hood, remained and appeared again.

(http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c230/gali123/Report/knowncharremain.jpg)

End of Phase 2 - playing chess (I decided to delete again the vacation hood).

(http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c230/gali123/Report/endphase2chess.jpg)

Checked SimPe: instead of 201 characters - appeared 221. 20 characters was added, but all their aquaintances appeared.


Phase 3 - deleting vacation hood again

The carpool brought the sims back, no problems.

SimPe - instead of 221 characters - 259 (another 38 characters added).

On two deletions of the vacation hood, were added 58 characters, most of them with user numbers over 180.

The game worked without any problems. After Phase 3, no more characters were added (I use antiredundancy), and stayed on the same number (259).

To save my sims, if I don't have any better solution, it's worth to "pay" 58 characters.

No bugs or errors were encountered in the game, I could enter the old house without using the magic wand (I downloaded it just in case), and the sims kept their new friends met in the vacation.

Now I am ready to be crucified again.

Gali, you're forgetting one MAJOR aspect of the test - you didn't do it under the same conditions, with stuck sims like this person had. stuck sims implies there is a bigger underlying issue. so yeah, doing it that way MAY have worked for you, but it's the equivalent of me claiming that I can cure cancer by trimming my fingernails because I don't have any cancer my body right now.

I have another solution, in which you don't change the number of the vacation locals, and it's done without any hack. I sent it to Pescado, but didn't get any respond.

1) Enter a lot of the sim's  best friend.
 
2) Invite one sim which is on vacation, increase relations until you can propose move in, and move him to the friend's lot.

3) Tell him to find own place - he will move to the family bin.

4) Do it for each sim (there is not an option to move more than one), until all the sims are in the family bin.

5) Build a new house (the previous may be corrupted), and move one of the sims there (husband or wife). Add to him the mate from the family bin.
Sell vacation house and buldoze it, or buldoze the hotel/the com lot. If you can't buldoze the hotel, see paragraph 6. Buldoze the previous house.

6) Open a new hood, add the 3 vacation hoods, package the original buldozed hotel/house to a file.
 
7) Enter Packaged lots, change the name of the hotel, and install the hotel/house to replace the buldozed hotel/house.

8. Enter the vacation hood, and paste the hotel

Problem solved.

She never does it under the same conditions. See her thread about sim color preference (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,7941.0.html).


The point is, the problem is easily solved with a 100% safe and incredibly useful hack. Going through any of Gali's methodologies takes time and effort and is absolutely unnecessary. The first methodology, which she attempted to prove was safe (and failed), resulted in approximately 58 character files more than in the beginning in a relatively short time of play. 58 files of fluff instead of zero errant bits. That is not acceptable.

I may try goign to my self sism lot and see if it forces his wife home because if it does theres a chance that the host family (the Vlades) might be foreced home also.

Gali, for the last time, ANY of your kludgy methods are going to result in hidden (and not so hidden) damage.

What part of that do you not understand?

Gah!

Empires, you've been told what to do in this thread. Reading comprehension FTW.

*coughs* uh, come again? ooookay, methinks Gali is a phaenoh-type that invests a weeee bit much in their sims....

"What part of that do you not understand?" [Witch]

1. The watermelon on your head.

2. The continuous try to portray me like this:

(http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c230/gali123/bug-1.jpg)

Gali, I don't have to do anything, you do it all by yourself.

Try the new magic wand, perhaps it will work for your situation. It should force a family remember to respawn by the mailbox.

Really?

(http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c230/gali123/sting.jpg)

Gali, lolcats are a lot like the Kenny Rogers song: you've gotta know when to hold em, know when to fold em. Simply put? lolcats lose their effectiveness (and their amusement qualities) if you use them constantly in every post as a meatshield.

Who told you that I put the last lolcat just to use an lolcat?

I just announced my dearest Witch, that I am going to commit a suiside - may be it will please her, and she will calm down...:D

Gali, you are the only one panicking in this thread, except possibly empires. You hate to be told you're wrong and keep persisting in trying to convince people to do stupid things with their games. You've plastered irrelevant pictures, like the one of the bloody Caliente sisters digging holes for some unknown reason, all over this thread. This is empires thread for her/his problem and you are being very selfish and rude. You have made it all about you. Again.

I think the version I found was out dated though as the collection file never appeared in colections so I could not get the wand.

Oh dear god! I'm starting to feel a moral responsibility here.

Here empires, click here (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/ffs/index.php?dir=al%2Fhacks%2F). It's called magicwand.zip