More Awesome Than You!

OK, so I've installed Seasons and retained only hacks that are verified "clean" so far of for which updates were provided.  Now in the first two lots I've gone into of my hood, some of my sims are missing want slots.  For instance, one male sim has two blank wants, a female has three blank wants.

Anyone else had this happen?  I'm wondering if I'll get those slots back??

How blank? Empty, or no icon but something is there when you hover it?

If they're empty, all it means is that there are no valid wants to roll at the moment. Either force a wants reroll, or wait for a normal reroll. They should come back.

If they're invisible, you have a corrupted package file. Grab objects.package back from the CD.

The slots are there, just empty.  How do you force a re-roll?

Lot debugger: wants - reroll, ctrl-click the aspiration icon with testing cheats enabled, or going to a comm lot with the Sim.
Usually waking up from sleep also causes a reroll.

thanks! I'll give it a try.

I found this too. My college sim had blank slots but they filled up the next day. She also was obsessed with buying stuff.....not the usual wants for a knowledge sim. Now a semester has passed she is back on track, wanting to do her term paper etc. She still wants to buy drums, but then lots of kids want stuff they can't afford  :)

Going on a date also rerolls the wants.

Jordi, how do you get something off the CD? I tried that with Pets when I was having problems (somebody told me to do it because one of my Sims was invisible and they said it meant the objects package was corrupted), then I had to reinstall the game for some reason, and it wouldn't go past a certain point. I figured I messed up the CD somehow.

So what is the correct way to get something off the CD to restore a corrupted file in the game?

Not that this is earthshattering or anything, but when I added my old hoods back into the game, I lost the intro images / story for the new hood. I can live without them, but if there's an easy way to restore them, or at least the opening image, that would be nicer to look at than a blank tool screen.

Why they would be overwritten when there are no other 0000 hoods is a mystery to me.

snap: browse to the real CD/DVD (not a mini image)
Open compressed.zip
All files will be in there in the same path as they will be on the harddrive (the installer just unzips it). So Objects.package will be in compressed.zip\TSData\Res\Objects\objects.package.

If you have a lame US version which comes on two disks, some files will be in compressed.zip on disk 2.

Thanks, Jordi. Here is another dumb question: how do I keep the Sims game from opening when I put the CD in the computer? It started up the last time I tried this, and I quit. Then I went to the file and copied it. Next time I tried to install the game, it wouldn't go. Did I damage the CD somehow? If you think this question is too tiresome to post a reply to on the board, if you have time could you send me a private message? I'd probably be too afraid to ever try this again, but I'd still like to know what I did wrong.

I don't think it's possible to damage the CD without standing on it and jumping up and down.

When I don't want the game to boot from the CD, I just hold the Shift button down (like normal).

Just a note on the original question: I had the same thing with Lucy Burb, but she had all wants and fears completely empty. Rerolling with the Lot Debugger didn't work, but she got one want after school that first day (I always time warp back about 5 minutes so the bus will come), and after sleeping some in the evening before her dinner and homework, she rolled up all want and fear slots except one. I also left the lot and restarted the game when the Debugger didn't work, so I just had to wait for her to make up her mind on her own. Of course, Seasons borks the beginning plots for at least the Goths, the Pleasants and the Dreamers even more so than other expansions did, with wants they should have starting out not being there the very first time they are loaded. (Cassandra didn't have the want to marry Don, Daniel didn't have any woohoo wants at all, for either the maid or his wife, and Darren wasn't so keen on increasing his creativity. It was strange. Didn't check the others out too much except to know that Brandi and Beau looked about right, and Dustin didn't. Don and the Calientes were all moved into the Goth lot by marriage instead of playing their original home lots.)

I've never been able to get the shift key thing to work.

I simply put the disk in the CD tray, double click the shortcut on my desk top, then close the CD drive.  Works every time and I get the game opening in window mode rather than full screen from the auto play.

Of course, it doesn't help if you just want to put the disk in and not launch...

This seems to happen with the premade Maxis sims if you install expansion packs without playing the families first. If you play them in base game for awhile and *then* install the EPs, they don't seem to get the blank want slots. That's been my experience, anyway. Sometimes exiting and re-entering the lot helps.

One of my shift keys doesn't work for not starting the game - it's linked to Windoze Hotkeys or some bloody thing. Try the other shift key.

There is a utility called TweakUI that can disable autorun for you, unfortunately I don't have a link, you'll have to google it.

I could never get shift to work either, until I realized you have to hold shift a REALLY LONG TIME. Now it works for me everytime.

I also have missing want slots. But its on a second generation plantsim who's an adult, 1 week from elder, so she's been played A LOT and is not a maxis character. She was fine one day, then next time I went into her lot, blank slots. A date will refresh them, but I left wihtout saving because I wasn't sure I want her in love with the sim that was quickly available for a date at the time.

Just sending them to a community lot (sans date) will also reroll their wants.

Blank want slots is a harmless artifact of want tree resets. Rerolling usually does not make them go away on its own, but once the sims have performed some "Seed" actions like talking to other sims, their want trees should be reseeded with enough to populate their want slots again.

Do you mean the objects.package from the Seasons CD?

Nothing to add, but just wanted to say THANKYOU for this thread (and the explainations) as I was about ready to pull all my hair out over the "blaank want slot" thing! FYI in my game Cassandra had only 1 want. I used the Lot Debugger to UpGrade PreUni Sim and 5 of her want slots were blacked out & had lock icons on them! Eventually, some stuff finally "tripped" the other slots into action, but I was going nuts rooting through my downloads looking for a possible conflict!

It's nice to know I'm not alone, it's not my fault & that I can expect even more funky stuff as I go along. (I'm playing on a fresh install with NO saved games, so it's good to be prepared for the "Storyline Screw Ups" that Seasons has added. )

-ZW

Also, Cassandra ended up with both a morbid fear (-1000 Aspiration points) and a strong want (+2000 Aspiration points) about throwing a party. Very strange.......