More Awesome Than You!

Since I installed OFB patch 2, when I send sims on an unowned community restaurant downtown lot, there is a bug with the MaitreD.

If there are counter seats on that restaurant lot and tables, the MaitreD will only seat Sims at those counters and then will go into a loop of greeting the others sim lining-up one after the other until there is a free counter seat. The maitreD will completely ignore the free tables and will not sit sims at these tables. Once a counter seat is free, it will sit one sim at the counter and then go into the greeting loop until there is a free counter seat again still ignoring the free tables available.

On lots with only tables, the MaitreD does not experience that problem but if there is only counter seats it will go into that loop greeting bug. This is a problem that appear with OFB patch 2, it was not like that prior to it. It does not happen on own business lot either. It is strictly and unowned community lot problem.

I removed all my mods in game in case it could have been a conflict problem with no luck.  Testing cheats did not produce any error, I always have it at on.

Did anybody else notice this?

EDIT:  Good lot to observe this problem are Speedy fast lane bowling, The Hub, The Crypt, Londoste and Red Famous dinner.   Also, this happened while my sim was sent alone on a community lot.

I'm glad it's not just me.  I thought I was going crazy.  I was getting frustrated when the maitred kept saying no available seat yet there were still chairs left even at the counter.
We need the mighty "game fixers" for this.

D'oh! I had noticed the problem, but didn't realize it was patch related, so I re-did most of the lots with that problem (either taking out the counters or the whole restaurant, in the hubs case).

Though for me, it's like they don't want to do anything but eat.  They eat, then go right back to the podium.

Will investigate the problem. It is odd that it affects only unowned lots, though, since owned lots run the same server codes.

Crammyboy has a fix for that here: http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,4645.0.html

I know what you mean but we kind of have a certain control on business that we don't on community lot.  I don't know if it is the counters code they modified so NPC would only want to seat there when there are some or if it is the maitreD codes that are screwed up since with only tables on a lot, the maitreD acts normal.


I edited most of my lots and had to remove all the counters seat including the one next to bars.  As suggested by Jsalemi there is a fix here for this, I personally use another one that I found at the Insimenator site.  The fact the MaitreD gets in a loop creates a side problem, the sims will stay line-up forever until they finally get a seat and won't do anything else on the lot.  On the Speedy fast lane lot, if I see 1 sim play bowling I am lucky.  I have plenty of sims appearing on community lots so it is annoying seeing them all line-up like that and only be greeted one after the other, they are stuck in that loop too.

Examination of the code does not indicate anything particularly interesting in the seating code between p1 and p2.

What you are POSSIBLY seeing is the fact that seating arrangements are completely inflexible. A sim DEMANDS to be seated at either the counter, or a table, and will accept no substitutes. At all. So if a sim gets it into his funny head that he will sit at a counter, then he will not accept a table in the absence of a free counter.

Naturally, this is decided by whatever is more attractive to the sim in question, which is a somewhat more vague process which tends to sadorandomly select the same thing, so everyone wants that counter.

So in other words, this is deep coding into the sim itself so it cannot be fix?  Setting does not really help in my case.  On the Hub lot, the podium is on the second floor and the maitreD insist on going down 1 floor to sit sims at the bar.  I tried different settings even with 2 separate dinning rooms, 1 with only tables and a podium and a seperate room with only counters and a podium on the same lot and both MaitreD insisted on sittings Sims at the counters only.  This might be a problem since OFB is out and I only notice it recently, it is a possibility.

Is there a way of using a less attractive/expensive counter while using a more attractive/expensive table to see if that might break people loose?

Just thinking outloud.

 ??? I have never noticed it
Is Crammys worth it though?

Yes, Crammy's hunger fix is definitely worth having.

Counters have certainly become more attractive since patch 2. In P1 and before seating on counters and tables was roughly equal, but now most tables stay empty.

On the plus side this does mean that my outings can now be seated...

I am not certain if this is not influenced by JM's no dining with scum and Cboy's restaurant fix though. I haven't played without them since they came out.

Hm. Not sure this is a patch problem, because I haven't installed the patch yet and encounterd this problem too. Maybe a hack problem.

I ended-up editing all my lots and either they only have tables or they only have counter seats and I put plenty of them so they won't get stuck in that loop.  It is the only solution I found so far.  Problem is on lots with only counters, even with the restaurant fix the sim will line-up again and again to eat  ???  They don't act that way on lots with only tables.  Really strange.

I did remove all my mods from the game and it did not change the way the sims acted, they still all wanted to be seated at the counters only. :(
I also tried putting back only the restaurant fix and JM mods and the result were the same.

I don't have any cc objects in my game so it is not cause by that either.

Restaurant fix perhaps does not cover "be seated at counter". Will release a combo-pack shortly covering the entire restaurant/coffee obsession.

Good news, I look forward for this fix. :)