More Awesome Than You!

I am finding odd hobby lot names in the dialog box in Pleasantview, e.g. OLD!!! Games of Glory.  It also displays a wire mesh graphic in the thumbnail.  There are three messed up hobby lots altogether, while the others are displayed just fine.  I actually sent my Sim to one of the messed up lots and there was only an empty lot with the head Sim of the hobby there to greet my visiting Sim (what I was hoping was that just the text in the dialog was messed up, not the lot itself).  I have searched the web and also here and cannot find anyone else mentioning this.  Has anyone had this happen or has everyone long moved on from playing Pleasantview?  I have been away from playing the game since the time of Bon Voyage coming out with SecuROM, so I just recently started up again and decided to play Pleasantview for old time's sake.  I would also like to add that the Free Time and Seasons neighborhoods have no issue like this with the hobby lots.  Has this happened to anyone out there?

I seem to remember something like that happening in Zazazu's game, something to do with Don Lotharios house. Of course, Zazazu had been trying to edit the hobby lots so I think that is why that happened. Have you touched the hobby lots at all?

Emma, thanks for responding.  No I did not touch the hobby lots.  I did, however, use the Lot Adjuster on one of the existing lots to make it larger.  Do you think that might have something to do with the hobby lot problem? 

I only got brave about using the Lot Adjuster because Plasticbox said it was so easy to do and has done on several of his/her lots.  It is just odd though, because it appears that the game code is looking for old hobby lots that Maxis decided not to go with for production release.  I know that it cannot actually change game code, so I am guessing that it has to be with pointers being messed with in one of the package files for Neighborhood N001, since none of the other neighborhoods have this problem.

I've certainly never had a report of the LotAdjuster doing something like this before.  It doesn't make many changes to the neighborhood package, but I suppose that there is a possibility of neighborhood corruption if the LA was unable to parse things correctly.  Do you have the Sims Store or any EPs from the EA store installed?  Have you tried restoring from the backup you made before using the LA?

Hi Mootilda, I am not saying that the Lot Adjuster did this.  I was just trying to think of what I did that was different from my normal play.  I also remember that I moved some neighborhood decorations in order to make room for a couple of lots.  Unfortunately I no longer have the backup from before I used the Lot Adjuster.  I just put a fresh copy of N001 in and played it before checking back here.  The hobby lots seem fine in the fresh copy.  If you want, I could experiment by increasing the lot size of the same lot that I did prior to this and see if any hobby lots break.  If not, then it may have been from my moving stuff around.

edited to add:  No, I do not have the Sims Store and would never download an EP from the EA store, ever (I like my hard copies).

Me neither, which is why I haven't tested those configurations.

I always like to investigate issues which may be related to the LotAdjuster.  If you wouldn't mind, I would appreciate it if you could (backup and) expand that lot one more time to see whether the LA actually caused the problem.  If so, please let me know.

Hey Mootilda, I did not forget about you.  I am happy to report that using the Lot Adjuster did not mess up the hobby lots.  I played the same families and adjusted the same lot with no problems at all.  I will have to keep on digging to figure out what caused the corruption (or just forget about it, unless it happens again).  I had forgotten just what a finicky pita of a game the Sims can be.