More Awesome Than You!

Sort of following on from my thread about the mass amnesia of previously-created townies & NPC's, I can't help thinking that erasing these memories was a waste of time if it was to reduce 'clog'.  I was in SimPE today and I was totally amazed at the number of invisible memories everyone is picking-up, especially playable sims.  Their memories files are going to multiply like a Trojan horse in no time. 

To illustrate - If one of my Sims is invited to a group outing, there are usually 7 or 8 of them in the group.  Add to this approximately 11 or 12 visiting Sims (I have it set for 8, but I always get 11 or 12), plus the 'resident' NPC's (cooks, etc.) and the floating ones (vampires, Mrs C, etc.) and we are talking about near enough 30 people on a downtown lot at any one time.  Not only that, the visiting Sims come and go, so it's probably at least 40.  Every one of these is getting invisible memories of everything going on around them and everything that's being said.  Sometimes the entire page in SimPE is nothing but invisible memories. 

Is this something we should be worrying about, because I don't like the look of it one bit.  I've only had the game two weeks and already I can see the difference in size in all the memory files.   

What exactly are "invisible memories"? Memories that appear in SimPE but not in-game?

It may be time for SimPE to update the memory UI. I don't think memories are really an issue at this point, as long as you don't have thousands of sims in your neighborhood.

Probably will be a problem.

Hopefully a delete all hidden memories utility will be made, along with a delete all reference to this char file utility.

The only bad thing is you will have to wait 10 min before being able to gossip.

I've noticed this as well. My Sims are currently at Uni and haven't spent much time downtown or community lots yet but they both easily have 100+ invisible memories - and that is just after a couple of Sim days (I clean them out regularly). Up until I installed NL I was still using JM's ollllllld jump bug fix that disabled the chat mechanism for spreading invisible memories. The memories were still created but at least they weren't passed around like the plague. I try to keep my file sizes down as much as possible and having 500-1000 invisible memories of every single Sim who has ever lived is certainly NOT the way to accomplish that. I'd also like to know if I'm just being a paranoid control freak by deleting them all together or if having some sort up updated chatbugfix might be in order.

I use the interaction quite often and I haven't had to wait to gossip. When my Sims weren't old enough to have any invisible memories yet or when I was using the chatbugfix, they would just make up something to gossip about. I just closed out my game to do my nightly memory clean up anyway, I will have to pay attention to see if the interaction isn't available right away.

Yeah .. they tend to be memories that belong to other sims.  If they directly witness a memory-creating event, or learn about it through gossip, they gain an invisible memory about it.  They then transfer it to other sims through gossip.

the Prima guide refers to them as "Memory Markers"

You want to see something really scary? Take a look at the memories of the carpool drivers and bus drivers. All invisible, and they know everything. Every damn thing. I'm talking from the start of the game throughout every generation you've played. What the hell for? What purpose could that possibly serve?

I've actually had sims I invited over bring over drivers as a "friend". Thing is, you can't directly interact with them at all. You can't do anything that requires clicking on them, even greet them, but you can "greet everyone" on another sim and let them autonomously socialize with your sims or soak in a hottub with them, join them in a meal etc. Then once you know them you can call them later.

Several of my sims are friends with drivers. It's a very one sided relationship though since they only way they can interact with them is to call them, or throw a party and invite them over and wait for them to talk to my sims.

Of course, this is all a bug since you were never meant to interact with them. I guess they didn't take into account the randomness of who sims choose to bring over as their "friend".

My sims keep bringing home Daniel Pleasant as their "friend from work". I have no idea why, since they all hate the guy. Never invited the friendly driver over, though. Might as well, he knows everything about my sims! 

Please read the following article at http://modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=90810 about disappearing townie memories and the fact that this is the way Maxis has written the code this way. Alll community NPC and townie memories are set to delete themselves.

Twink

Yes, I know they're set to delete themselves, I actually saw them disappear and heard a 'click'!  What I am angry about is the fact that it has been done arbitrarily and without any advance notification.  I feel it is up to the individual player whether or not they want their townies to remember and for how far back.