The latest patch was released yesterday. Details here:

http://help.ea.com/en/article/the-sims-4-updates/

In addition to the two new careers, Business and Athletic, and an assortment of bug fixes, they also made some changes to the user interface.  My first impression is that the changes help, especially what they've done to the Career panel, and breaking up the options on the Phone menu into categories to make them easier to find.

They've released a new patch.  Looks like a lot of miscellaneous bug fixes rather than new functionality.

Details here: http://simsvip.com/2014/11/25/the-sims-4-new-game-patch-november-25th-2014/

There's a fix for that at simlogical, here:

http://www.den.simlogical.com/denforum/index.php?topic=3285.0

Well, I've now had 3 more babies born to CAS Sims and all of them came out with hair color matching one of the parents.  As long as that happens more often than not, I have no problem with the occasional genetic weirdness.    We'll see how things go.  I was fascinated by the genetics in TS2 and will be interested to see how it works in this game.

I've noticed that if a Sim is sleeping in a bed when the maid wants to make the bed, the maid will stand there next to the bed forever, rather than giving up because the bed is in use.  The moment the Sim wakes up and gets out of bed, the maid continues his/her housecleaning routine.  Can anything be done about this?

Bluesoup - Sorry!  Old habits die hard, and I haven't been around this place in six months or so, so it's taking me a while to re-acclimate myself.

And to everybody else - yes, the reason I bring it up is that I often listen to other things while playing, and it's distracting to have random Sim-noises playing suddenly over the sound of whatever else I've got playing, when I deliberately muted all in-game sounds from the Options panel to prevent it.

I noticed today that even with ALL sound options turned off (muted), the sound of Sims singing in the shower still comes through.  This happened in my game with both male and female Sims.  Don't know if anything can be done about this or not, but it's annoying.

Karen

I have some questions about the way genetics works in TS3:

1) Is there any way to view DNA information in-game (similar to the SimDNA command in TS2)?

2) I have a CAS-created couple, one with red hair and one with black hair.  Their first baby, a boy, came out with blond hair.  The second, a girl, also has blond hair.  Personally I think that's pretty unlikely, but without knowing what the parents' recessive genes are, it's hard to tell if this is a bug or just sadorandomness.  I don't know if the genetics of CAS Sims are as flaky and unpredictable as they were in TS2 (if they are, that's OK, I can live with it, as the weirdness will be bred out of their offspring over time, as the number of born-in-game Sims increases). 

3) Are genetics like hair color still determined at birth, like in TS2?  n TS2 I always used to save the game just before the birth, then look at the eyebrow color of the baby to determine what its hair color was going to be, and re-load and try again if I wanted something different.  Assuming I can manage to zoom in close enough to see the baby's face in that much detail (which was MUCH easier to do in TS2), do babies have eyebrows that match their eventual hair color?  Would re-loading just before the birth randomize the DNA traits?

4) Is there a "first-born effect" in TS3 like there was in TS2?  And if so, is there a way around it at this point? 

Thanks for any information you can give me.

Karen

Xyo, thank you for the quick response!  I didn't have any idea that there was supposed to be a Files subdirectory, let alone what was supposed to go in it.  It's working now, no errors, with the awesomemod installed.  Whew!

Karen

I don't understand.  What, exactly, did you do to fix it?  You deleted a file?  What file?

I have downloaded the framework REPEATEDLY.  Re-installed it, REPEATEDLY.  No luck.  If anyone can help me with specific steps to resolve this problem, I would appreciate it.

Karen

I'm having problems with the framework.  Have tried it numerous times, following the instructions in the framework.zip file EXACTLY. 

Running without any added files in my C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3 directory, the game starts fine, and I have no graphics issues.

Exit the game, add in the resource.cfg file, restart the game, still no problems.

Exit again, add in either the DDFMap.txt file or the d3dx9_31.dll that's included in the framework.zip file, and the game still loads OK, but on entering the lot, ALL exteriors are solid red (only the inside of the house I'm playing is normal, absolutely everything else is a featureless bright red).

And if I try to add the awesome.package in the Mods\Packages directory, the game simply hangs on loading, at the beginning of the progress bar.

Any advice would be appreciated.  I am running Vista SP1 (32 bit), graphics card is ATI Radeon X1300 Pro, and as I said, the game ran fine until I tried to install the framework (from the zip file in the Framework thread, ).  I updated my video drivers in the hope that it would fix the issue, but it didn't change anything.

Aside from installing the censor blur removal fix from MTS2, I have no hacks or custom content at all yet.

Karen

Inge, thank you so much for the link!  I just got the game yesterday, still finding my way around, but I can't stand playing with the censor blur.  Was delighted to see there was a fix already available.  It's working fine for me.

Karen

I'm running QA version 71.22 with Vista.  Just updated this morning.  I'm not having any issues, but then I haven't tried to do anything but editing basic character info, renaming families, that sort of thing.

Does that actually work in AL?  I tried putting both "boolprop aptbaselotspecifictoolsdisabled false" and "boolprop aptsublotspecifictoolsdisabled false" in my userstartup.cheat and it doesn't seem to have any effect.  They reset every time you enter a new lot and you have to enter them all over again.  Or is putting them in the GLOBAL startup.cheat file rather than the USER one, what makes the difference?

If you know of a way to do this that actually works without having to retype the cheats on every lot you go to, I would really appreciate it.

Karen

EDIT to add:  I don't have any trouble enabling build mode in apts using the cheats, what I am looking for is a way to automate this in a startup file so I don't have to do it every single time I go into an apt lot.

Actually, I think it's not so much about posting it in the right place, as providing enough information to determine what the problem is.  The more specific information you can provide, the faster these types of bugs will get fixed.  That's why I included an error log with the description of the restorable car bug.  If you don't know how to generate an error log, try doing a search.

I just noticed that the version of the synctimer that's in the AL DC (dated 7/28/08) includes lot jumping.  Have the issues around that functionality (mentioned earlier in this thread) been resolved?  Is it safe to use lot-jumping in AL?  I admit it would be convenient, especially for moving between apartments on the same lot without having to go to the neighborhood screen in between....but there were so many issues with this function before, I'm just wondering if it's safe to use it now.

Karen

Same here.  The error occurs on the "Work on Body" option; the "Work on Engine" works fine.  Both teen boys and girls get this error.  Adults do not.  Log is attached.

Karen

I have been wondering the same thing.  If I want 5 different everyday outfits, I have to go through Pick New Clothes five times in a row.  That gets old pretty fast.  If it was changed that way on purpose, why?

Karen

EDIT to add:  I don't normally play with clothingtool_globals installed.  Doesn't seem to make any difference, I can only select one outfit at a time, even on a home lot.

Just wondering about the skill-building potential of the new objects in AL.  The playground items, in particular.  How do they compare to existing objects?  Are any of them superior to what we already had?

Karen

Yes, to the first two questions.  (Tombstonemovefix dated 10/18/06.)  No, to the last (not on that lot - I have a couple of other apt buildings that have multiple playable families in them, but not this particular one).

Karen

That's bizarre.  I did have an elder on an apt lot die of old age today, like yours, just as he got out of the carpool.  Everything seemed to work OK.  I left the tombstone by the mailbox, saved, exited to neighborhood, returned (half expecting the tombstone to be gone) and everything was just as I'd left it.  Memories and inheritance and so on all worked fine.

Karen

Yes, that's exactly what I'm talking about.  It seems to happen only on apartment lots, though; normal residential lots don't have that lag.

Karen

I am seeing an unusually long wait time (5-10 seconds) between clicking on the "exit to neighborhood" button and the "Do you want to save?" dialog popping up.  This was never an issue for me before AL.  Has anybody else experienced this?

Karen

Exactly.  I wish somebody would re-mesh the thing, maybe to make it small enough to place on a desktop?

Karen

Not sure what you mean by "time spent on each lot 'counting' in every apartment".  I have been using the synctimer since it was first released, and most of my lots are on day 203 now.  Just as an experiment, I went into one of my apartment lots, where I have two different playable families.  Both were on day 203 when I saved last time.  I went into apt A and bumped the counter up from 203 to 204, saved and exited back to the neighborhood.  Went back in to apt B.  It was still showing (correctly) its previous setting of day 203, and it also showed (correctly) that lot A was at day 204.  (Both synctimers are located inside the individual apts, not in common areas.)

As far as I can tell, everything is working fine in my game.  What specifically is the problem you're having?

Karen