I just have a quick question. Since I installed TS3, I've been playing with Story Progression turned off because I don't want my sims doing anything without me telling them to. So for that reason, I never bothered enabling AwesomeStory in my config file. Today I went to make a new config file in order to disable the sparkles from the Eye Candy reward and that's when I noticed that AS is now the only option available. If I disable Story Progression in the in-game options, will the game still work the same way? Basically, will AS be disabled when SP is disabled in game so that my sims will do nothing but take care of their needs and go to work/school like I've had it?

I really hope Pets won't be the next EP. I'd much rather see a remake of Seasons or Nightlife. Real dates in bars & night clubs & weather are much higher on my wish list for the game than pets are. And I'm hoping when they do the Pets EP for TS3, they'll do it better than TS2. I want more pets besides dogs, cats, birds and fish.

I'll try that, but won't it have the same effect? What's the third folder for, the one that has .bad on the end of it?

I copied all the files from the folder Sunset Valley.sims3.backup into Sunset Valley.sims3 in the Saves folder in My Docs and tried loading the game. The same thing happened. Is there anything else I can try, or is my game lost?

I think my game's fucked up and I'm not sure how it happened or why. I just went to start up my game and it looked like this:



I thought it was strange, but just figured the thumbnails didn't load or something and tried to load the game. Then I got this message:



I tried restarting the game like it said, but the same thing happened again. Is my neighborhood completely lost now? I really don't want to lose the two families I had.

The last time I played, I was moving the camera around to take a pic of one of my sims when the graphics suddenly looked really bad and the game froze. I couldn't minimize the game or anything, so I did a manual restart. I had been getting random CTDs, so I tried disabling Data Execution Prevention by following the instructions posted on MTS. The first time I tried the game, I was able to play six hours with no crashing. The time after that, it froze and I had to manually restart, then I tried again, and after several hours, the same thing happened. The CTDs I was getting at first all had the same Exception info. The first time it froze, there was no xcpt file, but the second time, there was, only it was showing a way different exception. I don't understand what all it means, but it might be helpful.

This is what it normally says when I get the CTDs:

[Exception info]
date: 2009-12-07
time: 18.01.10
type: ACCESS_VIOLATION reading address 0x00000014
address: 0x005c98a1 "C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3 World Adventures\Game\Bin\TS3EP01.exe":0x0001:0x001c88a1

And this is what showed when the game froze, the last time I played before getting the current error:

[Exception info]
date: 2009-12-09
time: 14.25.02
type: INT_DIVIDE_BY_ZERO
address: 0x007da1d4 "C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3 World Adventures\Game\Bin\TS3EP01.exe":0x0001:0x003d91d4

I restarted my game after deleting the .cache files and both lots are still showing as empty lots from map view. I'm almost wondering if my video card has anything to do with it. I have an old Radeon x1900 that I got when it was a high end card. The fan on it is super dusty, but because of stripped screws on the fan, I can't take it off to clean it out properly. I have a much better video card (Radeon HD 4850) but when I tried it back when TS3 first leaked, it would constantly crash, usually after an hour or so in game or after just 20 seconds or so in CAS. I tried everything to make it work including changing drivers, buying a VGA cooler, replacing my old case with an Antec 900 case which has tons of fans, replacing the power supply, reinstalling Windows, basically anything that anyone suggested. I was able to rule out overheating after lots of monitoring, and I even asked for help at EA (useless) and through the manufacturer of the card, XFX (the first card was replaced because they said it was faulty, but later they blamed EA's programming). I'm actually thinking of trying it again this weekend with the newest drivers and I'm going to try FPS Limiter with it to see if it makes any difference. If it still doesn't work, I'll have to wait until my brother buys a new video card in January and I can have his GeForce 8800. At least I know that card works because I used it to test if it was just my video card or something else causing the crashes.

After turning off DEP I haven't had any crashes. However, it seems to have just swapped one problem for another. What happened was once I disabled DEP, I played my game for like 6 hours with no crashes or anything. The next day, I played about 3 hours or so when the game suddenly froze. I couldn't minimize the game, and nothing was responding so I had to manually reboot my PC. Once it restarted, I booted up the game again and that's when I noticed the houses I had built weren't showing anymore from the map view, they just looked like empty lots until I zoomed in on them. I don't know if it's related or not, but this was the first I noticed it. I saved and quit the game thinking it was just a glitch, but it wasn't. The same thing happened again when I restarted the game. I ignored it this time and went to actually play the game. I sent my guy to China, got him married to his fiancee there and at the end of the vacation, they came home. Shortly after that, as I was moving the camera around to take a pic, the graphics suddenly looked really crappy and a second later, it froze again. I'm going to try turning off DEP to see if it fixes it. If it doesn't, then I have no idea what's wrong.

I noticed a few more bugs. I tend to have my sims go alone on trips to complete adventures. When I send my guy, his daughters' pictures show in the relationship panel and in any wants as babies even though they're both teens. The same thing happens when the mom is on a trip. When they return to SV, the thumbnails go back to normal.

Another thing just started happening since switching active families today for the first time since getting WA. I noticed that from the map view, the house I just built for my second family and the house I built and played since installing WA were not showing up at all. They looked like empty lots. If I zoomed in, they'd show ok, but the other strange thing is when I zoomed in on the first family's house, I could see in their house without my guy going there and visiting. That's not supposed to happen. I'm going to try playing again to see if it was just a quick glitch or not.

I'm not sure how or why it works, but it is.

I had that happen. I saved and quit the game and the next time I restarted, everything was still in the inventory and I was able to remove it. I guess the items I was able to take out of the inventory were the "ghost objects" because they weren't where I placed them before quitting, but were instead in the family inventory.

Well, I followed the instructions I found on MTS for turning off Data Execution Prevention for TS3 and I was able to run my game for like 6 hours straight without any crashing. So that seemed to fix things for me.

I was positive it was a RAM issue because my computer really doesn't get hot at all. I have 5 case fans and a heatsink/fan combo over the processor and I've done a crazy amount of monitoring my computer since getting TS3. Originally, I had my Radeon HD 4850 installed and TS3 would BSOD after just a few seconds in CAS and after lots of testing to rule out overheating, which seemed most likely, as well as other causes, I finally gave up and put my x1900 back in. Nothing in my computer ever goes above 55C and from what I've read, that's not bad.

If I'm remembering correctly, that was caused by the cough drop mod from MTS.

I tried using the regular version of this, and it's working fine. Although now every single Chinese person in my game now has mastered martial arts. I challenge them just once and they go right to level 10. I'm actually having more fun with the game now that I don't have to worry so much about skilling.

I'm getting random CTD too. I'm at the point now where I have to save every 5 minutes. Whenever I don't because it hadn't crashed in awhile, it will then crash and I'll lose an hours' worth of play. There doesn't seem to be anything in common with the times when it's happened. I never had any crashes before WA, but now it will CTD anywhere from 10 minutes to 3 hours after starting the game. My sims can be standing around, working on skills, on a trip, it doesn't seem to make a difference. But before the game crashes, it does sort of lag for a bit, so I'm thinking it has to do with RAM. I have 3 GB, but after quitting TS3, even if it doesn't CTD, my whole computer runs a bit slow until I restart. I'm going to try turning off DEP for TS3 and see if it helps.

I found a problem with the half off version. When it's installed, I can't spar anyone in China regardless of skill level and when I call a sim for a ranked match, the option "Challenge To Ranked Sparring Match" never shows up. I took out the mod and it works again. Can anyone confirm that these options work with the normal one? If so, I'll just use that even though I don't really want instant skills.

I just noticed another bug. When my female sim gets pregnant and is showing, the husband can't interact with her unless she initiates it. Basically, it's not letting me click on her when he's the active sim. If I select her, she can interact with him. After she had the baby, he could interact with her again. But then she got pregnant again and the same thing happened again. It's not a huge deal, I guess, but it's preventing him from fulfilling wants to talk to or listen to her belly.

Also, does anyone have any idea why all my sims are constantly sneezing? It's only been happening since WA was installed. Can they get sick and die like they could in TS2?

I'm on the list. So what exactly does it mean? Are they going to sell our info to spammers?

I've had the same problem. Mostly when dealing with the inventory, but I've had it happen in CASt too. Twice it got so bad that I had to exit the game without saving because Live mode wouldn't select.

I just noticed the crappy glowy effects while decorating the first house I've built since installing WA. It looks really bad when using white furniture. I was doing a white kitchen and I had to turn the textures dark grey to make them less blinding. I also noticed that windows don't seem to let in as much daylight as they used to.

I can confirm this. I just went to create a second family, and when I tried to drag the pics to set the relationships, the little box thing that lets you choose a relationship never came up. After figuring out I couldn't edit their relationships, I cancelled out of the Edit Relationships screen, but then my mouse arrow was stuck on the one guy's thumbnail. I got rid of it by left clicking, but then the mouse turned completely invisible, so I had to minimize the game for a second to get it to come back.

I noticed something similar in CASt as well. Normally when I want two different objects to match, I'll drag the texture onto another item. I colored a bed how I wanted, then tried to drag the wood texture to the nightstand and it acted like it was loading, but nothing ever happened. Buy and Live mode both greyed out and the mouse disappeared. I had to quit through the Task Manager. I reloaded the game, went back into build mode to see if it was just a one time glitch, but again, when I tried to drag a pattern from one object to another, the mouse disappeared and CASt never came back up.

That's one of the hidden traits that AM added, right? But I thought that townies and NPCs weren't supposed to randomly pop up with those traits. The one I was talking to was the cashier at one of the stores (I think the one where you can buy pots and bowls and other relic items) so it would be kind of strange for her to have that trait. Actually, I've never seen another sim before this have any of those traits. And I had a fairly large neighborhood before I reinstalled to test WA.

I stayed up all night playing WA last night. I reinstalled TS3 and patched up before installing WA. I played with only store content and AM installed. I really didn't have any problems. The game didn't crash, and besides there being a bit of lag (like a 2 second pause every 10 minutes or so) in the tombs, the game ran smoothly. The first thing I did was grab the Bachelor family and send them to Egypt. I had the two parents and the son each do a different adventure from the board at base camp. The dad's quest required him to report to a certain sim for the first part of the quest. I went to report to the guy, but no matter how many times I tried, nothing would happen. They'd talk a minute, but the quest pop-up never showed and it still told me to report to him. The son had a quest to take a pic of a treasure chest, so I sent him (and since the dad couldn't complete his quest, I sent him along as well) to one of the smaller pyramids. They got through ok, but when the dive wells gave them the "soaked" moodlet, it never went away for either of them. They both dripped water and had the moodlet which said 2 hrs remaining for a full day before I was able to get rid of it by having them change to gym clothes and back to everyday outfits. I then went to turn in the pic of the treasure chest to the sim it told me to, and the same thing happened to the son as did the dad. The pic was never delivered no matter how much I tried. I tried completing the dad's quest again, and the same thing happened. The mom was able to complete a quest, though, before leaving Egypt. Once the vacation ended, I created a new sim and switched to his house.

I sent the new sim to Egypt right off and had him start some adventures. I noticed two things while he was doing adventures and exploring tombs; he didn't get a single adventure offered to him that the Bachelors had done already and the tombs were all exactly as they left them except with treasure restocked. I know this is realistic and probably intended, but I'm not sure how my other families are supposed to build up their VISAs if they can't go on any adventures.

I also noticed a few more things while exploring Egypt. First, there were hardly any locals outside at all. The only time I'd see them is when they were running home. I have Community stalker swarm disabled in the config. Several of the quests require you to befriend some locals to complete, so this could be a problem. Another thing I noticed was the Egyptian locals keep singing this one song (the one about the Mummy) over and over (like the Sea Chanty in TS2) and it was driving me nuts. It seemed like every local who had nothing to do would sing that song. I could even hear sims singing it through the walls in their houses as my sim walked by. This I assume is something EA put in on purpose, though. Pretty much the same thing happened with the martial arts skill. My guy kept doing martial arts poses every time he was idle. The only other things I noticed that were strange were the scooter not having any sound at all once back in Sunset Valley, and my guy randomly passing out at one point. I was actually attempting to befriend a sim (one of the store cashiers) in order to complete a quest. I started talking to her, and as soon as the chat action was done, a new action "listen" would come up, so I think she was chatting with my sim. As soon as she started talking, my sim would yawn and fall asleep right on the floor. His energy was full, so I have no idea why he fell asleep. I got him up and tried again, and the same thing happened like 6 times before I got them to friends. This only happened with this particular sim, though.

There's no way I'd play without AM. I don't want my other families moving away, getting killed off randomly or having babies with random sims when I'm not looking. Plus, isn't the storymode off toggle still broken? That was the last thing I remember making me not want to play TS3 before I installed AM. I don't even pay attention to what they fix in patches anymore because I'm so used to having AM and not seeing normal bugs.

I'm having a lot of issues sorting my .package cc out. Not everything is named very descriptively, so I haven't deleted much. At least with the Sims3Pack files I can see a small thumbnail of the item in the launcher. I really miss having SimPe and Clean Installer. With my Sims 2 cc, if I didn't know what something was by the name, I'd open it up in SimPe and I could usually figure it out by looking at the textures. I also had a tendency to use Clean Installer to delete items and sort everything into subfolders. I need something similar for TS3. Otherwise I might end up having to delete everything and start over from the beginning with cc.

How many patches were released since WA came out? I haven't touched any of the patches yet since I'm not playing without AM, but earlier, I saw the update was available in the launcher, I just didn't install it. The weird thing is, last night when I looked on the launcher again, it said I was up to date, even though I'm still at 1.4.

Why wouldn't it already be available in buy mode? Is it one of those things where you have to go to a shop in the vacation area to buy?