More Awesome Than You!

I noticed an item that I could acquire in "buy mode" by paying nothing, so, I "bought" it.  The game then notified me that a patch was available for my store content, but I pushed the "later" button on that, since I wanted to know more about it, first.  I had no problems playing without the patch; but, upon checking what it did, I did possess some of the affected content, and the patch would allow me to use content that I had previously never used because of bugs which would now supposedly be fixed by the patch.

I checked here to see if there had been any news of this update; but, there was not. 

I went a couple of days, played, again, saw another free item, received the same offer, and did the same thing.  I checked here, again, to see if there were a new version of the mod lying around, or if people were discussing the new patch.  I saw no discussion about it. 

The last time that there was a patch, this mod was updated in almost no time; so, I guessed by the number of days that went by that no update to this mod was forthcoming or needed.
 
That being the case, I guessed that, perhaps, this store content patch only affected code with which Awesomemod doesn't directly interact, and that I didn't need a new version of Awesomemod to use it.  I continued installing the updates: I deleted the caches, again, and dropped in Awesomemod.

Next, my game appeared to save multiple times; I can even find those saves in the Saves file.  But, for some reason, the game doesn't like them.  If I go to the Main Menu, they are not displayed.

Plainly, I screwed up somewhere along the way.  Was I supposed to wait for a new version of the mod?  Was there going to be one that handled this patch?

Could anyone please help me get my game working, again-- or, at least, let me in on what's going on with Awesomemod and the store content patch?  (I'm not very technical, so I need to be talked down to like a kindergartener if it gets too complicated).

Thank you for your attention.

Store patches shouldn't have any effect on the main game. What exactly is the PROBLEM?

Ever since I installed the patch, when I save games, they appear to save without error; but, they do not show up on the Main Menu as games that I may select to play.  If I try to start a new game, it is a totally futile effort, because not even the initial save appears on the Main Menu.

That is abnormal and does not match any reported behavior. Are you sure the files are THERE? Perhaps you lost them.

I can see the saves under the names that I gave them in the Saves file; but, they do not appear in the Main Menu.

*  I suspect that I could make my game "playable," again, by restoring my files with Norton Ghost.  I believe that Norton Ghost ran its automatic update just prior to the introduction of the EA update (although I could be mistaken-- it was a pretty near thing).  At worst, I would have to roll my game back eight days. 

That wouldn't actually fix the problem, however-- EA would still keep pestering me with advice to install the latest patch, I couldn't fix my broken store items, and I might be stuck, unable to install more crucial patches in the future. 

I would, therefore, rather do anything else, up to and including re-installing the game, again, if I really had to do so, than just jury rig a solution with Norton Ghost, alone, [assuming it were guaranteed to fix my problem(s)].  If I used Norton Ghost to restore my files, and that much more so if I deleted all of my progress, again, to reinstall the game, I would hope to implement some change that would allow me to install and use all store content and future patches along with Awesomemod (I won't even bother playing if I can't use this mod) while avoiding my present outcome.  So, being made to understand why my game began behaving this way would be very much appreciated.

Your guess is as good as mine. Can you see the saves in an unmodified game? If not, it would seem like the game is just plain broken. Honestly, your problems started when you allowed the game to talk to the Internet.

I can see all of the saves up to the point I allowed the update for the store content in the Main Menu.  I can see every save that I ever attempted in the Saves file.

As I said earlier, I'm not much of a technical wizard when it comes to this stuff-- I wouldn't even have any idea how to identify what I could read to teach myself how to prevent Sims 3 from communicating with the internet (and running), or otherwise operating the way that EA wants it to operate.  The internet wasn't even generally available to the public for years after I graduated from law school.

I often wondered how so many people here could play this game for so long without their games breaking like mine always did; I suppose that knowing how to play without the game communicating with the internet is one reason.  I reinstalled Sims 3 on Halloween after taking a year off due to bugs and constant needs to reinstall drove me to more stable games, and I'm already teetering on the fence about whether this is all just too much trouble.  If an EA update can break my game this soon, my chances of getting to explore the full possibilities of the game seem well beyond remote.  Is there anything like "Hiding Your Sims Game from EA for Dummies" out there?  I know that I can't expect anyone to hold my hand; but, if someone without a B.S. in computer science can learn this stuff, I have to start somewhere, and I don't know where that is.  

If you have an outbound-restrictive firewall, like ZoneAlarm, you can tell it to not let any Sims exes communicate outbound.

I have all EPs, SPs, and store content arr'd. I have never blocked any sims application from the internet and have never had any problems with saving or problems with the game in general. In my opinion most peoples problems here stem from trying to play on Macs, laptops, machines that don't meet the requirements, shitty graphic cards, or not enough RAM. Another thing I tend to see a lot of is that saves, after being played for so long, get bloated and corrupt. Least we forget the ever so popular "you're doing it wrong."

That's "lest" we forget.

/me pet teflon AIDE