My clone was a Secret Society dude, too.  So hey, maybe not a Unholy Hybrid issue?

Yeah, that's what I meant, Kazzandra.  The points you accumulate in FT for hitting milestones (the 3 toddler skills, first kiss, marriage, etc), that you can use to assign a 2nd aspiration and the other perks.  Actually, I'm not even sure where I got LTA.  Anyways, it was bad enough getting Perma-Plat sims who just began college, but then adding the Slower Need-Decay on top of it made them boring as hell.

Well, it's kinda hard to quantify, how fast their needs were dropping.  I wasn't super scientific with it...it had more to do with how boring they got, lol.  But, I'll tell you what it meant for me.

When I had the first patch and the v1.1 crack, if my Sim had earned all 16 LTA points, and I had selected them all, my sims could go a couple of days before I'd need to refresh a need (get them to eat, potty breaks, sleeping).  And when I say "need to refresh", I mean the need would be at 50%, not even close to the red.  The game became very boring, very quickly, and I reset the LTA points on my sims, and didn't reselect the slower need decay benefits.

With the Unholy Hybrid, with all 16 points assigned, their needs would get to 50% towards the end of the day, it seemed (not including exercise that would drop hygiene and energy faster).  Basically, my sims had the option to actually sleep in their bed at the end of the day, instead of just relax on the bed.  But they also weren't way in the red on energy at the end of the day, which my sims are now, with FT uninstalled.  So, there was still a benefit with the Slower Needs points selected, but not so much that they were practically invincible. 

LOL, TashaFaun.  I read all the reasons here on MATY about why it would be bad.  I was just impatient.  So, I shrugged my shoulders and said "Eh, why not?"  I backed up the neighborhood prior to running it, so I figured it was no skin off my back to play it that way for a couple of hours.  I think FT was more fun with the second patch installed, but since I don't want SecuROM, I'd rather just wait for the second crack, and forgo the whole thing.

Edited to fix typo.

Just as an FYI, I tried the Unholy Hybrid, using the v.1.1 crack.  I noticed the needs were declining at a much more reasonable rate (even with all the FT points assigned), the game loaded much faster, and the wants became a bit more diverse (lordy, do you always have to blog about Sports?).  I didn't notice if you couldn't call certain NPC's, as someone mentioned in another thread, because I was playing a college lot...no maids or gardeners.  But no crashes, no ridiculous spawning of NPCs, nothing game-shattering, as far as my neophyte mind could tell.

However, when my sim was talking to a dormie on a community lot, low and behold, a duplicate of this dormie came strolling onto the lot.  So, I had two Magnus whats-his-face at the Student Union.  When I looked in SimPE, there was only one of them there, but it was enough for me to say "Forget it" and uninstall the whole thing.  Even with all the hacks and conflicts and everything I've done to my game, I've never seen a clone just pop out of the portal like that.   It seems it would be bad.

I have no idea if one has to do with the other, but still, eh, I'll wait for the updated crack.

Er, yeah Lion...already covered that in my post.  Not in Director's Cut usually means "discontinued".  It's why I admitted being a dork, for leaving it in.

Just a little FYI, in case anyone else had this problem with Novel Writing on your updated version of Monique's updated computer, or Alexx's for that matter (I tested both versions).

I had left in Pescado's novelprogress.package, because, ya know, I'm a dork, and it seems to conflict with both yours and Alexx's updated Monique computers when it came to novel writing.  Actually, it conflicted with Novel Writing on any computer in FT, hacked or not, but some folks may think that the problem lies with your computers, when it doesn't (at least, I did, at first, until I saw it happened on all computers in the game).  The novel progress hack is not in the FT Director's Cut, which is why I'm a dork, for not just replacing my Director's Cut folder.  Anyways, when I had the novelprogress.package in, whenever a Sim would write a novel, I wouldn't get the choices for storyline and cover, nor would the novel be delivered to their residence, and it took about 5 minutes real time (I guess that's about an hour Sim time?) to write.  When I took it out, the Novel Writing happened as it's meant to in FT.

And thank you for updating this, to both you and Alexx.

Thank you so much, Ellatrue!  I have a huge family, too, that I need to move from their current lot, due to much bugginess, and this house is perfect for them!  I'll even keep the pink...not only because I like it, but there's only one boy out of 5 kids (ugh, 2 sets o' twins, too...one cheesecaked, the other not...no more cheesecake in my game, ever again).

Yeah, Dadditude, I noticed that too.  Also, when my Sim came home from work, she didn't twirl into outerwear when she got out of the car...no one does that I can see...and then she decided to have a sit on the outdoor patio chair.  She got stuck there, and everytime I directed her to go indoors to sit, or stand, or pee, or pet her cat, or anything, the direction would drop out of the cue.  I finally had to pause and use moveobjects on to pick her up to move her inside before she froze to death.  She didn't die, but she did sneeze a couple of times, so I expected her to get a cold.  Didn't happen...at least, no sign popped up that said "Oh no! Your sim is sick!  Blah, blah, blah...make them lay down."

Then there's the Greenman's.  Mommy PlantSim bathed ToddlerPlantSim to get their water needs back up, and then I had her make some smart milk for the kid.  I know that the toddler already walks and talks and all that, but I wanted the bonus IQ points to skill build on the little tyke.  Then, it was glitch-o-rama.  First, both of their needs dropped back to pre-bathing levels (toddler's water needs were full, mom's was about 2/3 full).  Then, the animation for the smart milk to turn green got caught in some loop, which caught Mommy and Jr. PlantSims in a loop...the toddler was stuck trying to stand up, the mom was stuck in the same swimming spot in the pool, both looking like they were seizing.  Then, they suddenly warped to their next spot, the toddler to the room I had directed him/her to go to, the mommy on the other end of the pool, and then they got stuck again.  Major oddness, so I exited the lot without saving.  I only have Awesome hacks, and then Quaxi's no censor hack and Merola's Multi-Painting, and that's it, so I really think that one's a Maxis whoops.

Anyone else tried the smart milk in Riverblossom Hills?  I wonder if this is just an odd glitch, a PlantSim glitch, or if it's Sim-wide.

I use FastStone Screen Capture, and it sounds like it works the same as the Gadwin.  It will name and date your pictures according to your specs, and it's very easy on the memory resources.  Just wanted you to know of another free choice.  You can get it here:  http://www.faststone.org/FSCaptureDetail.htm

That happened to me too, but it was because I used Jordi's Tutorial on how to get a clean new neighborhood, and had left my neighborhood N001 as N001-bak.  Did you use his tutorial prior to getting Season's, to set up your new neighborhood?  If so, I bet if you go into C:>Program Files>EA Games>The Sims 2>TSData>Res>UserData>Neighborhoods, you'll find that your N001 folder is either gone, or you had renamed it to N001-bak.  If you want to get Pleasantview back, then you'll need to rename it back to N001 and then restart the game.

Thank you, so much, baratron for this.  I'm SimPE virginal, and this was very easy to follow.  And now, I understand the genetics of my Sims somewhat. 

I have a question.  I noticed when I opened up a Sim, like PT #9, under Relations, every person that was known to PT#9 was also checkmarked as being Family...people like Gen. Buzz and Ophelia.  When I looked at all my Sims whose DNA I corrected in Strangetown, they were all like that...if they knew someone, then the family box was checked up, as well as the known box.  It's too weird to see this between Johnny Smith and Ophelia, since they are in love with each other.  Anyone know why this is?  Is this a weird way that Sim PE reads the files, or is this another example of Maxis "Oopsness"?  Is it ok to uncheck the files if they aren't related (I'm talking the ones that really aren't related, not folks like Chloe and Lola who are related to Jenny, but it won't show up)?

Thank you for the Poker table fix included.  I haven't seen the Watch Out thing yet, but I've definitely got buggy Poker tables in the University dorms.  The dormies would just sit there, staring, not doing anything....who needs to resurrect Zombies when you've got the bugged Poker table?  Thanks!

Thank you, Nectare, for the FlashGet suggestion.  That did the trick and I was able to download, open and put these suckers in my game.     Thank you, Sleepycat, too, for making the compiled file for me to download, that was very sweet of you.  Alas, it wouldn't download correctly, either...just a shell, no meat.  Blowing two big fat wet ones to both of you for the help.  Oh yeah, btw, I'm female, for those that wondered. This was driving me nuts, since it wouldn't work in IE either, I just kept downloading empty files.  Same for Crammyboy.  The only downloads that actually downloaded all the way w/o Flashget were Pescado's.  And only on this site.  Too, too much weirdness.

Way to hijack a thread, you guys.    Yeah, I spend a lot of time organizing my downloads, too, about as much as I spend in the game.  But, I figure it's worth it to start out organized, especially since I'm such a download whore.  I organize my downloads per Sims 2 Clean Installer, as in Game Objects go in my Downloads folder in the Game Objects folder, Clothes in the Clothing folder, etc.  I organize my hacks per creator in my Downloads>Mods folder so if things go wonky, I can pull things out and put back in per creator.  It helps if it turns out two hacks weren't compatible, and I didn't RTFM.  Plus, I like being able to go into the Object Recolors or Game Objects folder, organizing by file size, and seeing if someone did some huge 10000k file that I know is just too huge for the Sims 2 to load.  I know that we're supposed to go by poly count, but I've never looked that stuff up in Sims PE.  If I know that most rugs are only about 50K files on the recolours, and someone's rug is then 500K, that one has to go.  Seems to work for me.  Meshes for clothes and hair are another story, since I never know how big they "should" be.  Anyone have a clue on that?  I like a well-dressed, realistic looking Sim (I love Helaene, she makes my Sims so pretty), but I never know what's too big for my Sims.  I'm thinking that custom content on the Sims themselves must contribute to overall issues on a lot, if you've got a lot of Sims or tons of objects, but I would imagine that if the custom content was within Maxis guidelines, it would cut down on those issues, right?  Anyone know?

Thanks again for the help, my game and I appreciate it.

I posted this over in one of TwoJeffs hacks, and 2 other people have said they have no problem downloading the files and opening them.  So, I don't know why, but apparently my computer has magically made these files corrupt for me.  WinRAR says they are corrupt, ExtractNow says they contain errors, and the Windows Explorer Extract tool says they are just empty.  Here's the list of hacks that won't open for me:

Abductions - Higher Odds Ver 1.1.zip (1.18 KB - downloaded 366 times.)
Age Transition Fixes.zip (1 KB - downloaded 166 times.)
Death By Satellite - Higher Odds.zip (0.7 KB - downloaded 205 times.)
Go Steady Critical Fix.zip (0.75 KB - downloaded 199 times.)
Move Away From the Portal.zip (1.1 KB - downloaded 251 times.)
NL Handheld & MP3 No Autonomy.zip (1.1 KB - downloaded 232 times.)
Photo Booth Try for Baby Fix.zip (1.25 KB - downloaded 97 times.)
Toddler Toy Death Fix.zip (0.99 KB - downloaded 238 times.)
ToddlerPlaywithtoiletfix.zip (0.76 KB - downloaded 683 times.)
Toilets - Always Flush plus Wash Hands Ver 1.2.zip (1.79 KB - downloaded 112 times.)

Anyone have any ideas about how I can fix this?  Or are they just really corrupt, and I need to wait for TwoJeffs to fix 'em?  BTW, these are the only hacks I've had trouble with, the rest I got from the site downloaded just fine, opened just fine and are working in my game now.

Thanks everyone, especially team MATY.  You guys make me happy. 

EDIT:  I have Cable Broadband, so slow downloads aren't usually an issue.  I have tried this in Firefox, Internet Explorer and Maxthon browsers, all are giving me the same results.  I've cleared all the caches, cookies, histories, temp files...everything.  Still won't work, which is so weird, because they worked about 2 weeks ago.  I'll try Sim File Maid and the Flashget (I don't have any downloaders installed), because I think that's my problem, too...that they aren't downloading the full file.  Although, don't these file sizes seem a bit small to you for the hacks they contain?  I mean, I know they are compressed, but they just seem small compared to the other hacks on the site.