More Awesome Than You!

Ever since installing AL, my hobby lots always only have the hobby maven and two other sims on them. No more arrive, and the original two don't leave. It makes visiting hobby lots even more boring than it already is. I read somewhere early on that it's just because my hood doesn't yet have sims with enough hobby points to visit the lots, but I'm giving that explanation up now... however many years later! Many of my playables definitely have enough points, yet no one comes.

I have ruled CC out as a cause, and it shouldn't be a hardware issue as I'm able to load other large community lots with plenty more than two sims on them. I have the Ultimate Collection and playing on Windows 7.

Any ideas appreciated.

Okay, I think I remember this one. It's because your graphics card is not recognized in the increasingly aging "videocards.sgr" , causing "graphicsrules.sgr" to interpret your video card as "shit tier" and give you "intProp maxNumOfVisitingSims 2". To fix this, add the line:
into your userStartup.cheat file. You may substitute 8 for some larger number if you prefer.

No, that's not it. My graphics card certainly is a bit senior, so I already have that line in userstartup.cheat. It does the trick on all other types of community lots; for some reason hobby lots are different.

Sims will only show up on hobby lots if they have the required enthusiasm level to get the membership card thing. I'm not sure if that also applies to townies, and if it does, what causes them to get given the membership card. It may be that townies just get automagic membership to their one true hobby lot.

Try making a test hood with loads of sims maxed out in the same hobby and if they don't show up either, something else may be causing it.

That was a good idea but the same thing happens in a test neighbourhood. I gave a bunch of townies the required enthusiasm points for membership and they got the pop-up notification that they have access to Sue's Secret Kitchen. But when my sim travelled there - only two other visitors. One of them was one of the townies that I had given membership to (I visited three times and it was always him and one of the burglars - not sure if that's significant). None of the others showed up and the original two didn't leave, so same as in my main hood.  ???