More Awesome Than You!

I see there is a new patch out today. Anyone want to be the guinea pig? I am posting this in the Oops! You Broke It! forum as the prior patch did just that.

I don't know if I trust it. They made a number of errors just in their list of fixes. Wonder if they really fixed the fishtank...

I just installed the new patch. A few days ago, I broke down and installed the first (borked) patch, after deciding that the new bugs were still preferable to the old ones, but I hadn't played yet. How fortuitous it is that I decided to check MATY 'one last time' today before firing up my game - otherwise I'd not have known about the new patch, and would've gone postal at the sight of a blonde Lucy Hanby. My sims thank you. :P

I have the patch that patched the patch, but will sit on it for a while since my game has been running just fine since I dumped the Pets patch that broke it.

I doubt it will fix poor Cassie's deranged cheekbones.

Hm. Would installing this bork my game if I have Seasons?

Get it here  (http://thesims2.ea.com/update/getpatch.php?appVersion=1.6&variation=cd&languageCode)

Someone else go first.  I'm not screwing my game again.
 :D

I backed up my game, installed it on top of Seasons, and am playing a lot right now. No resetting, and no problems so far. Will edit shortly to update. This will happen more than once.

Edit 1: The maid getting stuck on the fishtank still happens. The only difference is that they don't make a puddle and stop to mop it up. Not sure if that is post-Seasons stuff (henceforth known as PS)

Packaging lots DOES include recolors and cc objects now.

A Pets patch would have little to no effect on Seasons game, as Seasons does not use Pets object code or executables.

Patch seems to work fine (no Seasons installed).
All the fixes are in this time, and no hair oddity or ugly toddlers.

The maid actually cleans the tank once!

In fact, a dialog to that effect pops up now.  I installed the patch on my test system just to see, and the dialog box said something to the effect that 'You have a newer expansion, and probably need a patch for that.  Install this one anyway?"

The date [3/12/2007] of the patched pets object package (try saying that 3x fast :P) supercedes that [1/25/2007] of the seasons object package.  So... if patched object packages of previous EPs have no effect on your game, this won't help you if you have seasons.  However... you can patch, and extract and repackage the new/changed/patched BHAVs into separate (or one big) file and stick it in your Downloads.  This should effectively solve at least some of the problems.  Any changes made to the executable won't translate over.  So, we'll have to wait until an actual patch for seasons comes out.

Ste

I don´t really understand the way patching works. If patching an older expansion pack has no effect, how can these bugs be fixed in my game?

When a seasons patch comes out, will these fixes be included? Some are really pets related, like the birds and womrats fixes. How can these be included in seasons patch? I mean people can have seasons and not have pets. I don´t really understand how the code for birds and womrats can be included in seasons?

The code is there, but selectively disabled when the game detects you lack ZOMGPETZ!!!111oneoneone. As for whether the Pets patch fixes will be included? Who knows? My guess would be "No", because that would be the competent move.

When the patch has been officially posted, there probably will be one for people with Seasons too. That's the way they handled the Uni patch when they finally got around to it.

Apparently the Seasons patch is coming out this weekend.

So if I would have to start a clean game with all EPs and boosterpacks installed, I'd need to wait for a Seasons patch and then install all the previous patches up to Seasons for them to have any effect on my game?

 :-\

Nec, don 't be ridiculous. That's just an EA running joke. "Oh, and we fixed the fishtank. Roffle!"

That gave me a giggle and I bet you're right.

Sadly, it may soon become a MATY joke, too, as Macro...Clean with a fishtank in the house gets your sim stuck in the same constant loop.

Nah, we're ok.  We have TJ's fix for it.

The fishtank does work now if you uninstall Seasons (I uninstalled Pets, too) Then patch Pets, then install Seasons. I usually do this on another Windows account so my main game doesn't get touched, and none of that moving folders stuff happens. They did fix the NPC hair/thumbnails, too.

I only installed the new pet patch on top of my game (all eps and sps) (and took out twojeffs fix to see how it goes) and the maid seems to be fixed : she cleaned the tank 3 times but not in a row, and she didn't get stuck doing it. It's good for me.

Fish tank cleaning by maid, user-directed Sim, and macro-clean Sim now works in both Pets and Seasons in my game. Both installs are every EP, and all EPs are fully patched. Twojeffs' fix removed.

Wait, then, does that mean that if, when sims 3 comes out, you bought sims 2 base game (dirt cheap) and The Last Expansion (tm), and were Awesome, you could fool the game into unlocking ALL the EPs? What would you be missing, objects?

Probably, you'd be missing some of the Maxis graphics and animations, but not anything incredibly gamebreaking if you had custom content to compensate. When I was playing Sims 1 back in the day there were quite a few cloned custom objects that would work if you didn't have the right expansion pack, but would cause your sims to give you "missing animation!" thought bubbles while using them. Then again, a lot of cloned objects without the right expansion pack would disappear in live mode, show up but be completely non-functional, or just crash your game. :p

Lies and propaganda.  Watch out or you'll get this moved to Retardo Land.

Ok, so should I...

Wait for the Seasons version of this patch (lies and propaganda says coming soon) or

uninstall Seasons, patch, reinstall Seasons or

just install the newest patch over top of what I have now?

I'd rather not uninstall but would like some of the fixes since they seem to be fixing stuff...

I'm wondering the same thing.  At least I'm in good, green, witchy company. :D

I decided just to install over it. Despite Pescado's saying it would do no good, it did definitely FINALLY fix the maid/fishtank thing. (WOOHOO!) Some sheep was saying that it didn't fix everything, though, ones who have Seasons and didn't know that installing it over Seasons wouldn't do any good. My theory is that bugs that are strictly object based, like the fishtank, will be fixed because the patch alters the relevant objects.package file, while it won't fix things that require altering the exe.

It doesn't hurt anything to install it, so you may as enjoy the fishtanks fix while waiting for the Seasons patch. Especially since the idiot Liar had said it would be out over the weekend, and that was obviously boldfaced Lies and Propaganda. Uninstalling is too much trouble.  ::)

Is there really going to be a Seasons version of the patch? I can't find anything "official" about it anywhere. Why didn't they tell those of us with Seasons whether to download this patch or not?

Oddly, very oddly, when I put in the pets patch even having seasons installed it fixed a seasons problem.
Werewolf, Vampire, and normal Sim skin types are now updating correctly at proper times. was fixed...
Plant sim face textures did not change when the plant in question turned into a vampire. Of course, a vampire plant is silly, but it was still an annoying bug...

Objects.package will not be fixed because Seasons ignores the Pets objects.package completely. Anything requiring executables or objects.package will not be affected by this, which means pretty much everything. If you think it fixed anything, it's probably purely due to placebo effect.

Now, if you're saying the placebo effect when I made a plantsim vampire before I installed the patch, then when I installed the patch the vampire skintone appeared correctly on the plant was a placebo effect? I may not be the expert on the game, but extensive testing with a custom plant skintone (and the regular plant skintone too...) with vampire skintones (maxis and a default replacement) on a plantsim showed the same results, and then putting in the patch and doing the same tests, but not as extensive, came up with the results of the patch working was a placebo effect?

Odd...

Well MaxoidSam did say I imagined that cheat into the game, so I must have used those same powers to imagine the maid cleaning the fishtank once and then moving on to clean everything else instead of obsessing over it.  With those sorts of powers, though, you'd think I'd do something more useful or interesting with them.  ;) After all, TJ already had the fishtank thing under control. Silly me.  :D

Hi Liss, good to find you in my company ;) So I'm gonna install overtop on the theory that it can't hurt and even a placebo effect provides temporary relief. Gimme them sugar pills.

I installed over Seasons first and noticed a couple of differences. Thought it was working ok. Then, after uninstalling, patching, and reinstalling, I realized that really did fix things. Only things I noticed was that the maid kept cleaning the tank, only without making a puddle. Recolors were packaged with lots, but the Sims2Pack installer is separate.

mmmmmmmmm sugar. *drool* *tweak*

Just to make sure I understand what I've read... Installing the newest pets patch with seasons installed is NOT going to apply all the fixes it mentiones for pets? I need to uninstall seasons, install new pets patch, then reinstall seasons to have the patch work 100%?

I tried both ways, as I said, and I would say yes.

Or wait for the Seasons version.  :)

Meh, I think I'll wait.  XD

Murphy's law for my game. I never had the problem of the maid or macro-cleaning sims get stuck on the fishtank until after installing Pets p2. I haven't tested the maid but I do have macro-cleaning sims get stuck now.

TwoJeff's fix installed now.  >:(

These stupid patches are making my head spin.
I guess I'll just install all of them and pray my game don't esplode into a BFVBFS.
Ever since my last reinstall which would be somewhere in the fall of 2006, I've been playing the game unpatched. So far no glitches or bugs, other than the werewolf still looking like a werewolf when shapeshifted back to human. I haven't had any fishtanks for a long, long while so I wouldn't know about that.

Of course I'd have to add that I barely play the game anymore in the first place. Tho may I slip in here that lately I've been getting "the blue screen of death" sometimes when I play TS2 for a long time. It started happening right before I got seasons and after installing some "awesome hacks" I got here. If it happens again (which I hope not) I'll make sure to note down the error message and such.

Just to make sure I know what to do - Since I don't have Seasons, I should install all the Pets patches and I won't get into trouble?  I never installed patch 1 because of the bad press it got here.

The replaced Patch 1 with the new one, so there's only one to install.

New Sticky at the tech forum of official bbs...

http://bbs.thesims2.ea.com/community/bbs/messages.php?threadID=5602c28013eeb8045905e21cb2b86ece&directoryID=21&startRow=1&openItemID=item.21,root.1,item.61,item.104,item.41,item.127,item.23

Author:  MaxoidGoonter - Rank: Stammering Sim - View MySimPage Profile 
Date:  Mar-30-07 12:10 PM PDT (updated Mar-30-07 12:42 PM PDT)
Subject:  Patching your game - The definitive answer 
 

You only need to apply the most recent patch for the most recent EP you have installed.
This is because the installation of your most recent EP includes all previous bug fixes, so there is no need to apply previous patches.

EXCEPTION: If you have Pets and Seasons, please apply both patches - some of the Pets fixes were not included with Seasons. Thanks!

 
 

But I thought the Pets patch wouldn't do anything if Seasons was installed.  ???

It won't, as far as objects.package fixes are concerned. It MAY potentially do something about borked texture or mesh cases, as those files are still used, but will do nothing to address EXE or object fixes.

Anecdotal evidence suggests otherwise...
/me broke down and uninstalled Seasons, patched Pets, and reinstalled Seasons after all, just in case.

ETA: Any chance some awesome personage will be identifying the Pets fixes not included with Seasons and making them available to the Seasons-enabled Peasantry?

The more I read this thread the more confused I get LOL. 

If I understand correctly what J.M is saying...   Even if I uninstall Seasons, install the pets patch, then reinstall seasons... any fixes having to do with the pets object.package and/or pets.exe won't be working with seasons installed?

That makes it sound like it's completely useless installing any Ep patches, because the newest Ep installed is going to ignore the fixes anyways.

Pretty much.

But hopefully the fixes ARE in the Seasons patch, which is now out.

They obviously aren't...considering the statement made by maxoid on the official BBS and quoted here.

this all just makes my head spin.

maybe I should just stop playing and go back to selling on eBay...gee...which one is more aggravating?

I was really starting to think maybe J.M was just yanking my chain because I assumed seasons read the pets object.package when it needed to do stuff from pets.  After finally finding a message on the offical bbs... it explained that a new ep grabs code from the objects.package of the previous ep and merges it with the new objects.package.  I didn't realize it worked this way.  So apologies to J.M for ever doubting your wisdom LOL.

As for the new seasons patch... It lists 3 fixes, but the file is 45 meg in size. I would assume it contains the latest pet fixes. I can't see needing 45 meg for 3 fixes.  But considering how wrong I was in my understanding of how the game worked, I could very well be wrong LOL.

This is false and wishful thinking. Objects.package does not work that way. Textures, meshes, and animations are grabbed from previous expansions, but objects and executable codes are most assuredly not.

Well I didn't quote the message exactly, but from what I understood of the explaination,  the objects.packge that is in the seasons folder contains all the objects.package info for seasons and any previous ep's installed. Or is this wrong as well?

This is correct. However, modifications to the objects.package of a PREVIOUS expansion thus have no effect whatsoever on a new expansion.

Which means I wasn't entirely correct with my earlier reply.  uninstalling seasons, installing pets patch, then reinstalling seasons does in fact patch the game pretty much completely.  I now understand how all this works. Thank you for putting up with all my questions trying to figure this out :)

Well, apparently the aquarium/maid being fixed was actually a glitch. It only happened twice. Now they are stuck again. Grrr.

Told you it was just placebo effect.

Yes, you did. They still didn't get stuck the first two times  >:( You infiltrated my game...didn't you. You Fat Stealthy Obstreperous Ninja Jerk :P

My experience (for those who care):

I have both Pets and Seasons.  I backed up my folder before trying anything.

I installed the new Pets patch.  It told me that I may end up having to uninstall and reinstall the more recent expansion (Seasons) in order for the patch to work.

I then tried to install the Seasons patch, but it told me I must uninstall and reinstall Seasons first.

I decided to first try playing a house with the fish tank (Goths) to see if the Pets patch fixed something obvious - the OCD maid-fishtank problem.  Maid was still OCD regarding fishtank.

Next I uninstalled and reinstalled Seasons, installed the Seasons patch, and reinserted my backed-up folder.  Went back to the Goth house and played for 4 Sim-days -- the OCD maid-fishtank problem did not reappear during those 4 days.

Whether that means the patch(es) worked or it's an anomaly is anyone's guess.  The maid-fishtank problem was the only problem I was really aware of in my game.  I suppose time will tell.

yeah, it told me to reinstall seasons too.  I'll be doing it later today. *sigh*