More Awesome Than You!

I know something similar has been talked about in a recent thread, however this doesn't seem to be related to Rabbit Holes, nor have any solutions been listed there.

I think this has been going on for a while. At first, I'd notice a sim or two (who for some reason showed up on map view) hanging around Bridgeport Sports Zone. I thought nothing of it, until I noticed that one of those sims just stood there next to the building for days on end, until finally he went home when my sims visited his wife. I thought maybe he was moonlighting as a mixologist or something, I didn't check. However, for a while now I've trying to get a butler to work for me and, like with many other players, my butlers would (literally) run away from home after a few days (they'd also never return). Using Master Controller, I found them standing next to Bridgeport Sports Zone. I eventually typed "radar all" (or w/e) in the console, and a few strange things have been brought to my attention.

1. There were quite a few sims hanging around a few spots in town at all times for many days: http://i53.tinypic.com/wwaqs8.jpg (http://i53.tinypic.com/wwaqs8.jpg)
2. Zooming in revealed the sims outside the bar were just hanging around, doing absolutely nothing: http://i53.tinypic.com/9sbc4x.jpg (http://i53.tinypic.com/9sbc4x.jpg)
3. Everybody at City Hall was, ahem, taking a tour of the building: http://i54.tinypic.com/1zd0uhg.jpg (http://i54.tinypic.com/1zd0uhg.jpg)
4. Some (up to 5, I didn't count) sims at Sports Zone were had "Doing: " in their information box, although nothing followed the colon: http://i54.tinypic.com/17uur8.jpg (http://i54.tinypic.com/17uur8.jpg)
5. Apparently I could join a protest, although there were no sims outside the city hall protesting: http://i51.tinypic.com/15qx10z.jpg (http://i51.tinypic.com/15qx10z.jpg)
6. As soon as I unpaused the game and sent one of my sims to Bridgeport Sports Zone to dismiss their butler, the Sports Zone became a hotspot, and all sims who were weirdly hanging around in City Hall and the cinema immediately moved their butts outside Sports Zone, resulting in even more Sims just hanging outside the bar. I have the anti-swarm option off, so it might be just the game stalking my sims, but still, what's with all the sims there standing around there, for days? http://i54.tinypic.com/k9ds1d.jpg (http://i54.tinypic.com/k9ds1d.jpg)

Sims locking up is often a sign that your computer has exceeded maximum load and is unable to process the AI routines for the sims, so the trailing part of the population gets locked out of receiving any processor time.

Is that so? I don't know what to say, it's not like The Sims 3 hogs all of computer's memory since sometimes I can run other applications a-ok.

I temporarily changed households, and this is what I found:
http://i56.tinypic.com/28c0rq9.jpg (http://i56.tinypic.com/28c0rq9.jpg)
Bar situation hasn't improved either: http://i54.tinypic.com/23kcls0.jpg (http://i54.tinypic.com/23kcls0.jpg)

But I suppose you're right and that's the same reason service sims have been acting up, too. As in, they just show up to my house and then leave without their cars just so they can charge me at the end of the day.

Out of curiosity, what are your computer specs?

Barely enough to run the game, judging from the pics.

I have an Asus with an intel i7 core, an ATi HD 5730 graphics card with 1gb mem, and this happened to me as well.  It only happened in Bridgeport, and fixsim took care of any sims I wanted to play that were stuck.  I've dumped Bridgeport, and am having no such issues in any other town.

My build mode graphics are kind of funky, but they changed after the latest patch, before I installed LN.

2GB RAM, 2.00GHz (I run on Win7, so I guess I should have more), but I'm not sure about my graphics card etc. I'll have to find my user manual.


I run on low quality graphics to, you know, improve performance (make the game move faster).


Exactly.

(http://cats.moreawesomethanyou.com/inadequate.jpg)

Hell, on XP you should have more.

Start>Run>Dxdiag>Display

You don't know what graphics card your computer has?  If you're using whatever came with the computer, odds are it's using an integrated chipset instead of a standalone card.

Yes, I am using whatever came with the computer. So I guess it IS an integrated chipset.

(http://i51.tinypic.com/o9gzrn.jpg)


Surprinsingly, Win7 runs much better than XP on my computer. (and, by this, I mean the game itself also works better)

Looking at those specs, this is probably just your imagination. Your non-moving Sims clearly prove that.

Ok, let me revise that: it worked much better before I installed LN. Happy now?

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Computer-Games-on-Laptop-Graphic-Cards.13849.0.html
Select TS3 as the filter. Your graphics chip is at the very, very, very bottom of "just barely playable".

LN also increased the graphics of the game.

I would never recommend using an integrated chipset for playing anything more graphic-intensive than Solitaire or Farmville.  You're going to need a video card.  You can get one for fairly cheap on sites like Newegg.  I got the Nvidia 9500 GTS for around forty bucks.

Just because he can buy a new Graphics Card for a good price doesn't necessarily mean he would have a slot to place it in his laptop, I myself have a Intel Integrated graphics card, and sadly am stuck with what I have, as all my other internal ports in my laptop are taken up with various necessary components. some of us just have nowhere to put the new card. It's sad how laptop companies leave no room for new components.

Proof read for the sake of Proofreading.

It's a laptop... she's stuck with it.

Even if it were a desktop most non-gamers have cheap shit like Dell which may not have the PSU wattage, case capacity, or proper slots to upgrade.

It's not that they don't leave room, because even if they did nobody makes retail laptop graphics cards anyways. Laptops have to draw a specific amount of power and generate a relatively low amount of heat; they have to be built around the graphics card, not the other way around.

They're not meant for gaming anyways.

Oh, wow.  I missed the part where it was a laptop.  Yeah, laptops aren't generally recommended for gaming.

I missed the part about the OP using a laptop also, even after re-reading I still can't find where they say they are actually using a laptop, unless people are assuming a laptop given the specs.

Beats me why people buy regular laptops for gaming, then complain when they discover the specs are too low to run the things properly, even desktops, people cut corners, opt for the cheapest they can get their hands on, then bitch and moan when the specs are too low.

I don't know if the op has a laptop, but mine is.  It's a "gaming" laptop, I made sure I got the best damn graphics loaded laptop I could find.  Well, without going "Alien", anyway.   I've pretty much built (ok, had my husband build) every desktop I've had for the last ten years around a high quality graphics card.   

At least now I know the whole 'gathering of sims' can be blamed on my graphics card now...  Guess I'll stay out of Bridgeport, which isn't really an issue. 

That is a good point, I, myself, have only messed with the innards of a desktop only once, and that was solely to replace a graphics card on a ten year old piece of junk. so I wouldn't know as much as some of you do, but I can attest to the high quality that Nvidia makes their GPUs with.

Yeah, before I got my new computer, I did the research into how upgradeable it could be.

By "research" of course, I mean, "Ask Skadi."  :D

Pshh, forget that and build them yourself. It ain't hard, it's like Legos.

Building your own can get tricky. Sometimes it's easier to pay a premium to someone who knows what they are doing to make a gaming machine. I <3 my Alienware desktop. Yes, I spent a LOT of money on it. Yes, I probably could have gotten the exact same box for a lot cheaper. But, it's worked perfectly since I pulled it out of the box. The one time it didn't work perfectly, a quick call to tech support resolved the issue (my video card died, I had a new card two days later).

I can't say the same for any of the computers I've ever built, or the computers my husband has built. Both of us have been building computers for about twenty years now, but none of them has been as hassle free as these boxes we bought from a gaming machine builder.

(HEY JEZ, HOW BIG IS YOUR MONITOR? I HAVE FORGOT.)

So you're saying you don't know what you're doing after 20 years? One bad experience is not enough to knock PC building altogether.

I've only built two PCs (and only one was mine, the one I am using now) and I have not had any problems with either of them. Although I have been tinkering with my old PCs for my whole life, so maybe my knowledge is not the same as someone just following instructions.

I've actually had more problems with the numerous Dell systems my family has owned. (and Alienware is owned by Dell, btw) They're overpriced, use low-quality proprietary parts, and lock you out of many motherboard features.

I have a Dell. While it needs a complete upgrade starting with the motherboard by my standards (I've had two years of being mostly unemployed and struggling, so getting a new computer came a distant 20th or so behind making rent and getting enough groceries to avoid starvation), it's not that hard to upgrade a Dell. Three years ago, I doubled the RAM, tripled the PSU, got a great graphics card (which is middling now) and a super-fast rewritable CD/DvD drive for about $350. It wasn't hard at all to find fitting parts and my case still has plenty of room in it. That's even if I hadn't broken the front face of it going all hulk-angry when the damned thing wouldn't snap off properly.

My personal preference is to get a unit on clearance or refurbed that has at least half the specs I'm looking for. For example, one with great hard drives and processor, but crap PSU and graphics card since it's doubtful I'd not want to upgrade those anyway. That way I don't have to deal with building from scratch and I have a shiny new case, but it does what I want it to do for cheaper than I could have bought it completely premade at.

The fact is that Anaelir's problems are caused by stretching a unit beyond its means. If she doesn't want to upgrade or replace her unit, that's her prerogative (hello, $$$). However, saying that it worked before LN so now that it has LN and doesn't work that means that something must be wrong with the game code...now that's just stupid. The more shit you put on your unit, the more graphics and files it has to pull from to run a particular program, the more it is going to be taxed. This is basic and has remained constant through the Sims genre. And, hell, every other game series that features expansions.

I know, my previous PC was a frankenstein of a Dell too. Many of them, however, are slim low profile cases, which cannot be upgraded to anything decent and there's not a damn thing can be done about it.

Yeah, especially in TS2... every new expansion pack added makes the load time so much longer. It's more data to process and her RAM/CPU may not be up to the task.

Narmy, I built my second computer from the ground up.  I didn't twirl my hair around my finger and giggle until a big, strong computer person helped me.  Skadi was familiar with my new computer's processor type and willing to give me advice on upgrading it.

Jesslla, it's 21.5" widescreen.

Meh. Lesson learned.

I do know what I'm doing, I'm not as good as Skadi, but if I wanted to I am perfectly capable of building my own computer. However, I choose to spend extra money to have someone else do all of the research, testing, and actual assembly. Afterall, I wanted a computer that not only worked, but worked REALLY WELL. Alienware delivered. As for being "EW DELL OWNS THEM", yeah, but they don't sell repackaged Dell computers, they sell Alienware computers which, aside from possibly sharing some of the hardware, are two compltely different things.

Oh, and, for the EW DELL SUCKS ALL THEIR COMPUTERS ARE HORRIBLE crowd, Dell has the same failure rate of all of the other computer manufacturers (about 20%).

Lastly, sometimes expansions have higher requirements than the base game. Back in Ye Olde TS2 Days I could run the base game and Uni just fine, but when the second expansion (Nightlife?) came out I had to upgrade my video card, because the system specs had been changed.

Misunderstanding then. "Upgradeable" implies to me a pre-built that you can swap parts out later, although in retrospect I see how it could be anything.

That's just marketing nonsense, Alienware doesn't work better than any other pre-built or custom computer. There are even websites where you can choose custom parts and have them assemble and ship it to you, for a fraction of the Alienware price.

But hey, if you want to pay a premium price for a tacky case and a false sense of security, it's your money.

Given the first part of the above quote, you might want to make sure you are reading things more carefully before you start sniping - you have already been caught out there once. Jesslla has said that her computer works REALLY WELL, which is what she wanted, and thus is happy with what she bought. That has nothing to do with working better than anything, and so your 'retort' is irrelevent.

Your second point is better, but given that Jesslla has already explained what she was happy to pay more for, is still fairly stupid.

In sum: READ BETTER. Were you homeschooled?

Ahem. All computers with powerful components work "REALLY WELL", it doesn't matter how much money you throw at it. Implying that an Alienware works better than a homebrew....:

Is just plain wrong.

Except that jesslla isn't "implying" anything. She is stating that the Alienware SHE bought is better than the computer's SHE'S built. She is talking about her personal experience, so who are you to call her a liar? Mon Dieu, could you at least try to get your head around basic reading comprehension before you get on your DIY high horse?

When did I call her a liar?

"Implying that an Alienware works better than a homebrew [...] is just plain wrong."

That's misinformation, not lying.

Okay, now you're just splitting hairs.  No, you didn't come right out and say "ZOMG, LIES!!!!!" when Jesslla stated she found an Alienware computer to be less hassle-y than ones she had built herself, but you did say that statement was incorrect.  Because you apparently possessed Jesslla at some point in the past and lived her life for several years and thus have a better understanding of her personal experiences.

You're right, I'm not trying to convince her that her decision was wrong, and for that I apologize.

However, if the OP was interested in buying a new computer to play TS3 properly, Alienware is the worst $ vs quality (pre-built) suggestion there is. I don't really think the OP cares much at this point though, so that makes the whole debate pointless.

True, true. Although this information is somewhat useful, you know, in case I win the lottery or something so I can actually afford a better desktop and/or laptop and/or graphics card.

I found something similar last night. It started with the vehicles for the maid and the repairman being stuck in front of my Sim's house. After deleting them I discovered all of these funky Big Lemon's and Sloppy Jalopy's just abandoned everywhere clogging up the city's streets. For every one of them that I deleted another 2 appeared. Lastly, I discovered this huge crowd in front of the Movie Studio http://i1196.photobucket.com/albums/aa420/bzrburns/Screenshot.jpg[/img]](http://i1196.photobucket.com/albums/aa420/bzrburns/Screenshot.jpg) (http://[IMG)
I have 6144 MD Ram and here are my specs. http://i1196.photobucket.com/albums/aa420/bzrburns/specs.jpg[/img]](http://i1196.photobucket.com/albums/aa420/bzrburns/specs.jpg) (http://[IMG)  I am using the Overwatch mod.

They're receiving the Bliss, so of course everything else has to come to a standstill.

It is kind of "Close Encounter" spooky, huh? I used NRAAS's Mastercontroller to reset the lot and to get rid of all the 214 derelict cheap cars clogging up the city's streets but the game play is still sluggish and laggy. I've invested in 15 Sim weeks in this game and my band has only had 3 gigs. I'm going to try backing up my game and deleting it from the documents folder to see if a clean install will get rid of whatever is causing this. However, does it look like I have some kind of hardware deficiency or is this just some kind of frakked up bad programming on EA's part?

Et tu, sooze?

/me stabs herself to death with a misplaced apostrophe.

Jeez, I dunno what has come over me recently. I think I posted that on the same day I wrote a line to SK in IRC which was basically "the cat's sat on the mat's". Perhaps my subconscious is feeling particularly possessive and greedy at the moment and thus is stamping apostrophes all over the place.

You haven't posted your CPU, but considering that you actually have a good GPU (unlike 90% of computers these days), your other specs should be fine.  It's just that Bridgeport seems to generate a ridiculous number of derelict vehicles for god knows what reason.  You are certainly not the only one to experience this.

I have a 3ghz quad core processor, a 1gb 8800 Nvidia graphics card, and 8gb of ram. Other than experiencing a flavor of this problem, I have had no issues running this game or experiencing slowdowns. And yet, I too seem to have issues with multiple sims in Bridgeport standing around doing nothing. Every now and then, as in, once every couple (real life) days, I'll spot five or so sims standing at the back of the city hall building, doing absolutely nothing as their motives decay away. If I do not reset them, they will eventually die. The first time I noticed this was when my sim was going in to work, and stopped to mourn the multiple dead sims laying on the steps.

I'm hesitant to say that it's my computer specs causing me problems, although I have not CFF'd any extra memory towards the game, as I was under the impression that it wasn't necessary. Just throwing it out there that it's not just stone age computers that seem to be having problems. I'll document it more thoroughly next time it happens, instead of just resetting them all. I didn't know there were other people experiencing anything like this until checking this thread, so I assumed it had been a mod conflict of some kind.

Do you have many mods installed? I've never had that problem in Bridgeport and I have very few mods besides AM.

I think the people who do have this problem should post all relevant information, maybe a link will become apparent.

I have awesomemod, obviously. Fully up to date and functional. I have Master Controller, Overwatch, Nointro, no mosaic (updated for late night), the birth control mirror, and Anach's Rich Value/Teen woohoo mods. I have multiple Stylist Sims objects, and multiple hair/skin/makeup mods, and everything from the Store. If I install mods that fall into the build category, windows, ect, they tend to make my load save game window hang, so I have nothing of that type. (A different issue I have made no effort to fix as I make do without.) All of these number less than 30, and have been fully decrapified before they were installed. I have all expansions, all stuffs, and everything is patched, up to date, and operational.

The next time I see this happen in my game, I will document it further. I'll add one of the sims to my household and see if it is a particular action they are stuck on, something I hadn't bothered to check. Unfortunately it doesn't happen very often so it might be a while before I am able to give any more information. I also haven't played any other neighborhood than Bridgeport so I can't tell you if it has happened in any other neighborhood.

Just wondering additionally, if I am the only person who has had multiple sims actually die during this error? As it only occurs on my the steps of my sims place of work, I usually notice it when my sim goes into work and pauses to mourn the many bodies. Also is there any way I can check what processes/files my game is accessing? Perhaps if there is I can check to see if my game is shitting any particular kind of brick at the time.

Edit: One other thing. I did install this. (http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=425764) But it was after I had already experienced this bug once. It failed to address the issue, though I was pretty sure it wouldn't have much effect. It was properly installed and has had no real impact on my game, positive or otherwise. But just in case there is a connection..

Since you already have my specs, I'll only update with this info:

EPs: WA, AMB, LN
No Stuff Packs
Mods: AM + conf, MasterController, Overwatch, SolaceInSound's X5 Lifetime Happiness Elated Gain
And some CC: clothes, hair styles, furniture, etc - all merged together.



Hmm, I don't know if any Sims died in my game, as I didn't check. And out of the two sims I actually checked up on, only one of them was actually stuck on an action, the other was just standing there.

Were they standing at your active sim's place of work? Or were they stuck somewhere else? I am going to attempt to retrace my steps and see if I can force them to bug again. But mine is reliably behind city hall, which is where my sim works. If they weren't where your sim works, were they at venues that an active sim had recently visited? In your awesomemod config, do you have >NoCommunityStalkerSwarm enabled or disabled?

I have that feature disabled, so that community lots aren't derelict and empty when I go to visit them. I'm wondering if these sims aren't attempting to zergswarm my sim for some reason, and are caught standing outside his place of work even when he's not there? I'm curious now, so I'm going to see if I can test this and see if that is what could be happening.

No, they weren't hanging around their work place. As detailed in my first post (screenshots included), they all hang around Bridgeport Sports Zone. My AM enables swarms; however, I don't think my sims had ever visited that bar before - I don't think I've ever even looked inside that bar. Scratch that, I think my sim visited that bar when she was single and about 1-2 week old YA (I play with long lifespans). Anyway, after her boyfriend moved in, they usually went to Eugi's, The Grind and that bar next to the criminal workplace.

Hmm. Then my theory is most likely proven wrong, and I'm back to not having a clue why it's happening. I haven't been able to recreate the glitch again, it only seems to happen when I'm not expecting it so. I'll just wait until I have more information on it before bothering to theorycraft another explanation.

Mhmm, I had also never noticed any sims hanging around the bar before. I think I only noticed a sim hanging around there, for a really long period, about a simweek (or less) before I finally used radar all and saw how big this error was.

I have that option disabled too, so I don't think that's the problem.

Doing Radar All revealed a numerous amount of sims doing the "Take Tour of City Hall". All of them appeared to have been doing it for a great deal of time, as they were all miserable and their motives were all pretty much 0. I'm wondering if this is related to the fact that all my standing-around/dead sims end up by city hall. Though none of them were visible as they were all in the rabbit hole. Still, weird.

I've had sims stuck in City Hall in Bridgeport. I dunno if they died, but occasionally I get jobs in the Investigator profession where the person I'm supposed to talk to is in the City Hall 24/7.

I don't have them congregating around the building though.

I've tried doing a clean install and the city was still bugged. So I evicted the Sims to the Bin and started a new game...no stuck Sims...so far.  Once I started resetting Sims none of the bartenders, bouncers or nightclubs worked and it would take my Sims 3 Sim hours to walk down 3 flights of stairs.  If my computer has not  just become an oversized paperweight, it may be that the city just corrupted.  

Oh here are the rest of my computers specs.

Windows 7 32 bit
Dell XPS 630i
Phoenix AwardBIOS v6.00PG
Intell Core 22 Duo CPU E8400 @ 3.00Ghz (2 CPUs), ~3.0GHz
6144 MB Ram
1731MB used, 6578MG available
DirectX 11

That happened to me too. They were inside the City Hall, and it became obvious they weren't dead when my sim finally visited the Sports Zone and they immediately swarmed there. And by that I mean they didn't even take a taxi, they just ran there.

In my game, I had to delete the AJV Wellness Center Gym and salt the ground it stood on because I could not stop every Sim in Bridgeport from running to the lot and standing there. 

This is just kind of out of the blue...but does anyone else remember one of the promo videos that EA had posted prior to the release of Sims 3 where the Sims were all on the phone and started  running to see some Sim dude perform in concert? This scenario with the Sims all congregating at one spot reminds me of that video.

I'm suffering from this bug too in one of my saves. The townies just SWARM to the film studio, and stand there. Like they're waiting for the Rapture or something.
My pc is kinda average, enough to not have them "crucified", but they just stand there. At best, some take photos of the celebrities.

Resetworld and resetsim * clear the place out, but it fills up soon after.
From the map view they can be seen just swarming like zergling to the place, it's kinda funny to watch but still, it tends to clog up the game and if I don't step in, they just let themselves die.
I'm tempted to just destroyallhumans, but I'd like to avoid that for now if another solution is possible. Especially since I believe it will just happen all over again.

Any news?

If there had been news, someone would have posted it.  No one likes a thread-bumper.

Ok well here is my experience. The majority of my Bridgeport townies insist upon zergswarming The Grind. I noticed it tonight, only after updating to 1.18/6.1, and downloading/installing the latest AM. I have only been playing in bridgeport for a couple days now, and it is possible this zerging was hapopening before patching/updating AM, but I only noticed it afterward, when the crowd outside grew to about 40 sims. They all just stand around outside, doing nothing except pissing themselves, which causes their hygeine to drop to 0 and begins a cascade of wailing and gnashing of teeth (okay, just wailing) about how everyone stinks. Only about 5% of the total population that arrives at The Grind actually goes in and does anything.
I loaded up a couple of different families and every single one of them had at least one motive (usually energy) at 0/near 0, and every single one of them had 3 queued actions telling them to visit the grind. Even my main sim's father, who is an elderly astronaut widower has 3 queued actions directing him to the grind when I load up his home. Everyone that I load up REALLY wants to visit The Grind.
Shouldnt sims go home when they experience some kind of motive desperation? Isn't that broken if everyone prefers to stand outside pissing themselves?
Just in case it might help - My sim's wife, an up-and-coming actress, once had an assignment to go promote a movie at the Grind by handing out flyers. I noticed when I did that that the challenge completed after I had only handed out 4 of the 6 flyers. I didn't mind it at the time, headed back in to work, and completed my day. Thing is, is a I still have the option to hand out a flyer to everyone who isn't selectable. Since the challenge is no longer active, she can hand out flyers all day long without the option ever going away. I believe this is a bug, since the last time she had gotten an assigment to hand out flyers she completed it, and the interaction went away. I wonder if this zergswarming at the Grind may have something to do with the fact that they were trying to populate the lot so I could hand them a flyer, but perhaps a glitch ended the challenge prematurely, but failed to end their zergswarming? I dunno, just a thought.
So, I saved the lot to file, deleted it from the hood, figuring, "they won't zergswarm an empty lot", but I was wrong. When I deleted it AM (I think it was AM) even told me that the lot had been set to "No visitors Allowed", but apparently the sims didn't read the sign cuz they still zergswarm the empty lot.
ResetSim and Resetworld make them go away, but they just come right back to the empty lot formerly known as the Grind. Actually, resetworld is quite comical, because afterwards neighborhood view kinda turns into Dawn of the Dead, with the lone living breathing survivor seemingly lying prostrate and bound at the Grind.
Um, in case it turns out to matter, I have the option enabled in AM that stops the town from closing in on you like the Mossad when you visit a community lot, which, I do believe is working, because they certainly aren't flocking to the grind because I'm there, cuz I have not been there in about 2 sim weeks.
Lastly, I saw in an earlier post that this may be the result of a lack of computer awesomeness, but I would think that with 2.93 Ghz processor, 8mb of RAM, an nvidia gforce 9800gt and upgraded power supply I would be able to outpower any problem Sims 3 is likely to have in that department.

Edit: So I loaded up the other families now since I have deleted the grind, to check their action queues, and they are all still 30 seconds from passing out when loaded up, and now instead of 3 queued actions to go to the grind they have like 12 "go to Lot" actions queued, which seems interesting, because you can only assign them like 7-8 actions normally. After a couple hours playing around with this I have realized that as is, my game is pretty much unplayable. I mean, my family is fine, they are doing everything normally, its just that I can't do anything involving other sims. My law enforcement sim cant do any reports, because I cant work people into a friendly mood because the interaction string keeps getting interupted by them passing out, pissing themselves, or having some motive desperation, screaming about an adjacent smelly sim, or them trying to move to a new spot within the lot. My celebrity wife was able to attain 5 stars, but it is useless now because no one goes to any bars (they are all on the grind lot), and people still have parties but I go to them and no one is there. Even the host/hostess of a party will drop queue and sprint to the grind before the party even starts. This is to say nothing of the fact that the entire town is a ghost town, and only consists of people heading to the grind, or going home because they are about to die. And immersion is a thing of the past. Every celebrity just stands there like a zombie smelling and pissing themselves and passing out all day long. Some people still go to work, but most dont. They just hang out on the empty lot. If I let it the crowd will grow to over 50, and get to the point that each sim's model is loading one by one cuz there are too many sims on the lot. I tried turning the empty lot into a residential lot - still they come in droves. I get 10-15 townies passed out at a time, all in afore-made piss puddles. Ah well, back to Fallout for now. I know this will be fixed at some point, whether it is a problem with EA (most likely) or AM, it'll eventually be fixed.

I deleted the empty lot and it stopped the swarm.   However, the game would not allow me to put a lot there after that.

I just tried removing the lot, and it seems to have worked. I placed a new one on the same spot (maybe not exactly the same, it's a bit further from the road than it was, but it's the same area) and now the zergswarm stopped.
Just to be clear, it's necessary to remove the whole lot, even the empty square. Then a new one can be placed. If the lot in question isn't present in the list of pre-made ones, back it up before obviously.

Of course this isn't a true solution, just cures the effects. The Rapture Effect might just come back at any time.

I got one Sim doing it. Bianca Rubble or whatever her name is. She goes to any lot and instantly gets stuck. I always have to ResetSim her.

Okay, yeah, so when I said I had deleted the lot before, what I meant was that I had bulldozed the building...the lot was still there, and they were still swarming it. After reading Rushad's post I realized that that wasn't really deleting the lot, and that I further had to delete the actual plot of ground it was on. After using the bulldozer tool on the lot 3 times and completely killing it, the swarming has stopped.
I definately will not miss the grind, Im just glad it didn't happen to another building like Town Hall, as has reportedly happened to some. All I really care is that my townies are acting like townies again, and not being drawn to the Grind like jackals to a fat wounded gazelle, only to get there, see there is no gazelle, then just stand around pissing themselves and passing out. YAY! Thanks Rushad, even though I was just dumb to begin with for not trying to use the bulldozer more than once.
Oh yeah, and I cannot place anything else on that lot at all...it is forever an open plot of land just sticking out into the harbor, but I far prefer that over the asshattery that was going on before...

I'm also experiencing this and will try the method of backing up the community lot, then bulldozing and placing a copy.

So far, of the people who are experiencing this and have listed the mods they have, the only things in common that I can see between all of us is Awesomemod and no mosaic. And we allow the stalker swarm. My only other mods are HP's LN camera fix, default skintones and eyes and CMAR's pointed ears sliders. I have a friend who doesn't use any mods or CC at all and she has been playing Bridgeport for 3 generations with no ill effects at all. Would be interesting to hear from someone experiencing this who DOESN'T use AM or no mosaic.

CPU: Intel Core2 Duo 2.53GHz
RAM: 4GB
Graphics: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4570 (512MB)
OS: Win7 64-bit

I have all EPs and SPs.

For me, it started after I downloaded the version that was available on 30 Nov. This was BEFORE patching. I did not play between then and 2nd Dec. When I started playing 2nd Dec I noticed that there was noticeable lag which had not been present before. My game usually runs smoothly on high settings.

ETA: I also have DisableTouristSims enabled in my config and I have a tourist from China in Bridgeport. So AM is definitely not playing nicely with Bridgeport. Not saying that AM is at fault, but there is definitely something funky going on because she should not be there. This hood has never been played without AM so it's not like she had a chance to generate and then AM was installed afterwards. She should not have generated in the first place.

Well, I do not use the mod that is entitled "No Mosaic" over at MTS, because that mod says that it is base game only.
If we are loosely referring to any mod that removes the censor blur, such as the one included in AM, then I do use a no mosaic mod. I just use the one included in AM. I have the setting in AM that disables the community lot stalker effect.
I am almost certain that this problem was happening prior to the most recent patch, though I did not observe it happening until after I had patched. But before I had noticed the swarm and before I had patched, I did notice that there was some lag. I have a decently powerful rig, so I guess it didn't pile up enough for the lag to compel me to investigate before, but after I would use resetworld, for a short time, the lag would subside, and after bulldozing the building and the lot, the lag is completely gone. Moral being, that I noticed the lag before I patched, which turned out to be the result of everyone in my hood having 8-12 queud actions to head to the grind. Of course, the cascading pissing of pants and wailing passing out in puddles of piss that followed didn't help...
I don't use HPs camera fix, but jeez, if I wasn't about to move out of a penthouse I would totally get it. I DID use Nraas master controller at the time of the asshattery, though it continued even after I took that mod out. Since I have fixed it I have put the controller back in and no problems have resurfaced.
I'll say though, I haven't been able to figure out how to get a playable lot back onto the plot of land where the grind was, but I haven't really tried very hard to make it happen either (moveobjects maybe?) I dunno, but even if I never get a lot back there I don't care, my game is fixed as far as I'm concerned.

I have been under the spell of the Dell Corporation for a number of years, would like advise for purchasing a new computer. Being dense about building a computer, I must make a purchase. Would love to know what kind of computer to shop for with $2k USD, and the computer will be useful four years from now.

Same here as EppurSiMouve, I only have awesomemod and no mosiac from anywhere else.  I did notice the night to the Grind swarm it was the venue mentioned in the paper as being the place to go, so maybe that had something to do with it?  As amusing as it is to see the whole down walk zombie style to the Grind over and over, I was tired of it after a day.  The funny part was that once the club closed that first night, one by one people would leave by taxi, only to get home and immediately walk back to The Grind.  As for the lag, it didn't seem any different to me.

Can I suggest using AwesomeConfig then and removing your No-Mosaic? It's redundant to have them both, because you can use the AwesomeConfig page to configure a config file for awesomemod that by default removes the mosaic for you as part of AwesomeMod. No Mosaic has been known in the past to mess with other mods and files and I'm not experiencing any issues using the No Mosaic part of AwesomeMod.

Yep, deleting the building and lot itself seems to have worked.

(http://i54.tinypic.com/25jjdyq.jpg)

I let them stand around there for a while, but then I became nervous and I hit resetworld. Everything seems to have returned to normal, but I'll watch out for any problems.


ETA:
Interesting enough, everytime I try to load my save it crashes to desktop without any kind of warning. As in, it loads everything, I can see my sims for a second, then the screen freezes only to then crash to desktop without prompting me with any error. Every time.

Did they change the definition of the word "interesting" when I wasn't looking?

No. You can go now, "no one likes a thread-bumper."

Butthurt victolly for Senator Jeromy! Well done ole chap, gholfclaps all around.

Sorry, I wasn't being clear, I only use the awesomemod no mosiac, I've never had one from anywhere else.  But I will try it again with it unchecked in my config file and see if that helps

There is a difference in the way the AM no mosaic and other no mosaic mods work, which is why alot of people like the non AM ones.  It is just important to make sure it is up to date.  The rothchild mod at MTS was updated for 1.17 but hasn't been updated for 1.18 yet (it may not need to be).  The trouble is, there are so many different versions of the same mod that some may be conflicting, while others aren't.  I can't say if the rothchild mod is a problem because I am not playing Bridgeport, but have most of these clubs in Riverview and have not yet seen a problem with people swarming.

Most people with this problem seem to be reporting it solved when they removed and replace the lot (both the building and/or empty lot), even if it is placed elsewhere in the hood.  If most of these problems are within Bridgeport, I would be more inclined to say it's an EAxis glitched hood, especially given the number of problems being reported within that hood itself.

Twallan says he has a fix that he added to Overwatch to watch for and correct the situation that causes this.  Does not prevent the situation, just corrects it when it happens. Details there.