I know I might live to regret this question, but my lifespan is shrinking anyway.

I have bought most hardcover Sims 2 games, but no crappy Stuff Packs. I've played with a no cd crack since forever due to my inexperienced attempts at killing off Suckurom. I think I've done okay.

Now I've downloaded the Ultimate Collection because my greedy little heart liked getting something for free, even though it's mostly crappy Stuff Packs.

Of course, this time it's a digital download, and Securom installs on my system every time I start the game. I have gone through this tutorial: http://www.reclaimyourgame.com/showthread.php/314-quot-SecuROM-Removal-Instructions-quot-Revised

I can delete most things except the main Securom folder and something called "License information".

I launch the game through the .exe found in the EP9 / TSBin folder.

I have searched everywhere I know, but I cannot find anything that will help me run the game without installing Securom every time. I have asked my IT-educated civil engineer husband (who does not play The Sims 2 but plenty of other digitally downloaded games and apparently is not worried about spyware), and he says I should just live with it. I don't want to do so. So I ask humbly if anyone can update me on the subject? I have ARR'd plenty of things over the years, but have never played a digitally downloaded game before, so I really don't know and google won't tell me no matter what I search for.

He also has some stuff at Mod the Sims, here http://www.modthesims2.com/member.php?u=4248.

I had a sim who wanted to reach the top of the Journalism career (I believe). I had him check the paper every day, but it took 15-20 days before it finally showed up (I was determined not to cheat). I also figured that he was lazy, and if that was the only job he wanted to have, then he could putter around the house all he wanted until it became available.

Eventually he did land the job. And then after a couple of promotions he made some poor choices and got fired. C'est la vie.

It irritates me that they will sob about it for ever, but if it's their spouse who dies the wants immediately roll up a new want to get married, especially Wealth sims. Jeez, at least wait until the body's cold!

I concur. It's so much easier with a global hack like the one for simmies (which I appreciate a great deal; stupid elders living forever). Besides, I prefer for it to happen on its own so that I don't feel like I'm killing my poor pets on purpose.

I like apostrophes. They are my friends.

I don't get that one that much, but my sims are always getting the "stuck chess hand", which manages to irritate me every time.

That makes me think of the bathroom problems. Even visiting sims who have to pee will rather trek up the stairs and through the entire house to a locked bathroom and complain for length about that, then try to enter it again followed by complaining, rinse and repeat until they leave entirely because obviously the household won't allow them to pee - rather than use the guest bathroom downstairs, that was in fact right next to them before they ventured upstairs.

Stupid sims.

Compulsive D dreads! Thank you! I recently uninstalled and reinstalled everything, including all of my downloads, but when I went to get the dreadlocks they were gone from MTS2. I managed to find a Compulsive D website, but it had been discontinued. Oh how wonderful it is to find these dreads again. ^_^ I just love them, particularly the ones for the toddlers. Hair doesn't get much more adorable than that.

All in all, I love most hair creators who include the toddler and children ages as well. Although I can see why a lot of people don't. After all, Maxis didn't, for most of the hairs. I get so utterly sick of that short hairdo for the toddler girls. I know it's just for four days, but I like variation.

I wish that my sims would have the fear of "Cheat on X", rather than "Get caught cheating on X". I mean, they're supposed to be in love and all that, so why are they only concerned about getting caught? It irritates me sometimes, because it's not exactly loyal behaviour. "Oh what X doesn't know won't hurt him/her".

My sims only ever want to meet aliens after they have already been abducted. It would be nice, sometimes, if they could get the want and then get abducted.

I dislike paysites greatly. The Sims 2 is a game, and I've already paid for that. I'm not going to pay for the extras. I know that bandwidth and all of that costs a lot, but rather than make the site a paysite, you can have donations or keep most of the stuff free and make extra things for the people who donate. I don't particularly care for the Sims 2 Resource either. Most of the (free) things there look like crap or I already have something better from somewhere else. Of course, that's a matter of taste.

I don't have University (yet) and I don't have the debugger either. I played with a different family yesterday and saw that the blank Wants are indeed spreading. It's like the guinea pig disease. I find it a bit odd that only my female sims appear to be affected. And also that I never encountered a single blank Want until the last time I added some hacks to my game. It's really irritating. As good as these hacks are, I'd rather live without the hacks than put up with the blank Wants. As far as I can tell, once one of my sims has been affected, she stays affected, even if the Wants roll up again for a while it's only a matter of time before they disappear into the abyss once more.

At least I'm glad I'm not the only who suffers from this. 

Recently my Want/Fear slots have started to go blank, and I wonder if this is a "normal" part of the game or if it's because of hacks. I've had the Sims 2 since around January and I've never experienced the blank slots until this Sunday, which, coincidentally, was the day I loaded some more hacks into the game. However, by far most of these hacks are Pescado's. I also have a homework-goes-faster-and-sometimes-fun hack I got from someone on MTS2 and one called portalfix or something by crammyboy or something like that.

I can always do a "take out each hack individually and see which one is at fault", but this takes a long time and is rather tedious, and if it is a game glitch it'll drive me crazy if I can't fix the problem even when all the hacks are out of the downloads folder.

The slots don't stay blank all the time. They sort of come and go. Usually there is one Want slot available, and when that one gets filled, the rest roll up Wants, too.


Oh, and I love the phonehack. I don't know what I ever did without it. It drove me crazy how the stupid sims would just call to fill up their Social bar.

This reminds me of an interesting occurrence I had once. I had a sim go into labour while she was showering, so then she rushed out and gave birth, naked. I guess she knew that giving birth while fully clothed is a bad idea, even if you're wearing a skirt and sans underwear. After all, most sims only have one set of clothes to begin with, imagine if the clothes gets ruined.

Can you scroll up and down to click on the pictures still, or do you have to use other means to select the sims?

Also, how can you keep track of that many sims?  I get stressed out just keeping track of 6.

Once upon a time there were two sims, Spike and Morianna. Both of them were moderately Nice, but one had only 1 in Playful and the other one 3. I wanted them to fall in love, get married and have kids, but of course life is not that easy. I wanted Morianna to move in with Spike, so I had Spike invite her over on several occasions, and I continuously used Merola's Mind Control Mirror to check up on Morianna and ensure that she wasn't hungry, tired, lacking in fun, or about to pee on herself. It was easy enough to make them best friends, but whenever I tried to do a flirt or a kiss or a too romantic hug - regardless which one of the two initiated the action - it was rejected. Even when their relationship - for both of them - were at 100/70 or more, they still would not even Kiss/Peck. Finally I had enough and went into SimPE and checked the Crush box. That made them happy and they now kiss without rejecting each other constantly.

Is this normal or is it just them? How low does Serious/Playful have to be for a sim to not even want to Kiss/Peck? It serves them right to be stuck with each other.

I had a couple of sims get stuck while cuddling in the hot tub. I used the moveobjects on cheat and moved one of them out of the hot tub. That made them reset and they started doing what I told them to again.