That is still a big improvement on my current situation. Thank you very much, I appreciate it.

I'm looking for a mod that will allow me to keep empty apartments vacant instead of the game forcing townies to move in. I've briefly looked through the mods here and tried searching Google and Modthesims, but I've not had any success. I'm not even sure that such a hack exists, but it would be very useful to me if it did. Thanks in advance.

Alright, duly noted. Force of habit I'm afraid, I've worked as a moderator at all kinds of forums with all kinds of people; even so, this forum never fails to surprise me. :-p

This topic is getting just a tiny bit awkward. 

In an effort to get things back on track, I can report that placing the tomb room markers and creating triggers before attempting to lock the doors made no difference - in most cases the padlock still did not appear. I have noticed, however, that a padlock seems more likely to appear immediately after I have entered the lot, and before I have typed in the testing and buy debug cheats. I've also noticed that a padlock is far less likely to appear if the door was placed while moveobjects is active.

Oh? I didn't realize that. Usually I like to finish a room before placing a tomb marker, so maybe that is the problem. I'll be sure to take that into account when I begin my testing and report back with my findings.
That said, the padlocks have appeared in the past, albeit sporadically.

Generally, all of my locked doors are linked either directly to a switch, or indirectly to multiple switches via the Processor item. As I said in my previous post, the most important function of the padlock (for me) is to allow the player to see what they have unlocked. Many of them have only ever used EA tombs which almost invariably use the padlocks as an indicator.

Aha. Well that explains it. I'm sure that it will prove useful to me. It got really annoying to test a tomb over and over again only to find that the spawners weren't doing anything.



I didn't claim that it was a new issue. I only just got World Adventures recently, and I'm not getting Ambitions until someone manages to fix some of the major problems with it.
I just found the unpredictability of the door padlocks to be both unusual and, frankly, irritating. I know that the doors are actually 'locked' even if the padlock doesn't appear, but I really like the effect and it also helps other players (with whom I share my tomb lots) to tell whether a door is locked or not at a glance.
If I was creating tombs purely for my own enjoyment it would be a problem, as I already know which triggers do what, and whether a door is open or not.
As an alternative, I decided to use dim colored lights around the door which would be red if the door was locked, or white if the door was open. That, combined with the Cause/Effect FX should help players to work out where they need to go next.

I wasn't aware that actually 'going' on vacation would function as a trigger. I have always built my tombs while my sim was already on holiday, so that he was close by when it came to testing time. I'll be sure to take your advice into account the next time I want to test one of my tombs.



I've not used spawners much so I really wouldn't know. However, some of the spawners were taking over 5 days to spawn any treasure, which is about the average length of a holiday. Obviously it is important that the treasure is available when the sim enters the tomb.



Hm. All of the triggers I have tried have actually done what they were supposed to. The only problem I had with the doors was the visual effect of the padlock. I have found that with secret doors the easiest way to stop the player from opening upon inspection is to simply click "Make Un-discoverable"; that prevents the 'inspect' interaction from appearing on a mouse-over. Alternatively, if you wanted to make it so that the door could be found, but not opened, you can click "Lock"; the sim will be able to find the secret door, but not open it.



Some of the tools do seem to be rather touch-and-go. With my last tomb, I tested it twice in a row before I shared it, without changing anything between tests. On the first test, everything worked correctly. On the second test, some of the rooms didn't unfog properly.

I've also noticed that the ability to move the statues can sometimes differ between versions. For example, during all of my tests I was able to push a statue past a wall light. However, several people who later downloaded my tomb claimed that they couldn't push the statue past the light, and showed me screen-shots to prove it. I ended up having to repackage and re-upload my entire tomb for the sake of a wall light. It just goes to show that certain objects can behave differently in different game setups.



I have the original game + WA and the latest patch. At the time of writing I didn't have any mods installed. Usually, with regard to the door padlock problem, I attempt to lock the door as soon as I place it; should I be trying to lock it at a different stage of setup?
I will try out the information that The_Goddess provided regarding the chests and spawners in relation to the travel triggers, and return with me findings.

I see. I did have a brief read through the feature list for the AwesomeMod, but I must have missed that detail. Thank you very much, that will make things a lot easier for me. There's something wonderfully cruel about placing a valuable treasure tantalizingly out of the player's reach until they complete a punishingly difficult puzzle. 

I've been playing about with tomb creation. but I've noticed that some of the features only work when the planets are correctly aligned, and others never seem to work.
I've had problems with:

1. Doors: Most of the time when I click 'lock' the padlocks don't appear. Now I know that most doors don't have a padlock, but I'm talking about the tomb doors that are supposed to have them. Sometimes I've managed to make the padlock appear by a fluke, simply by deleting the door 10-20 times and placing it again until the lock appears. Is there an easier way to get the padlocks to appear consistently?

2. Chests: Here I'm talking about setting a chest so that it can only be opened with a keystone. I've tried many times now and this feature doesn't seem to work at all. Is there any way to make it work?

3. Treasure Spawners: I've noticed that it takes a few days of gameplay for any treasure to spawn on them, meaning that my sim's first visit to the tomb is less than rewarding.

4. Tomb Markers: This is quite a rare problem, but sometimes the rooms don't unfog properly, leaving my sims wandering in darkness. It's nothing to do with the settings, and sometimes they unfog after a long delay.

Ultimately, I'd like to know if anyone knows of any tips and tricks to circumvent these problems. I can live without the treasure spawners but the padlock and chest issues are really bugging me.
Thank you.

I'm glad to hear that this problem has been successfully resolved. I can finally get back to playing my favorite neighborhoods. Thanks everyone. n_n

Precisely. For me, the thrill of building small communities comes from my sims being able to see and socialize with their neighbors while out and about in community lots. Instead, my playable sims hardly ever appear anymore because of the swarms of new townies. That, and when I return to my other sims, I find that they've accrued about ten million new 'I met' memories because of the new townies who insist upon greeting anything that will stand still long enough. -_-

As far as I am aware, J. M. has not confirmed that yet. The last I heard from him earlier in this thread, he informed us that it did not yet work against them.


I don't think that you need to worry too much. Most hot dogs contain all sorts of crap but you can safely bet that pork isn't one of them.:-p
I'm not a vegetarian myself but, admittedly, I prefer the veggie dogs; I consider them to be the safe option. :-p

That's from South Park's Underpants Gnomes isn't it? LOL Sounds like a good business strategy to me!


Frankly I think that the techies are very strange. Most of them dress like Star Trek rejects for a kick-off. The one thing I don't like about social groups is that the apartments are restricted to certain classes, but my houses are not. I really don't want to see gearheads walking past my ultra expensive mansions at the best area in town.

I appreciate the correction and additional info, but 5 social groups multiplied by 10 equals 50 new townies. How do you justify the hundred others that I experienced?

Haha, good point. The sickening thing is that EA has even admitted that overpopulation will cause huge problems, but they have done nothing to prevent massive (and unnecessary) population boosts. I only have 23 sims in my neighborhood and it has 695 character files. o_o I'd also like to know why the game needs so many damn repo-men, I noticed that in the past. -_-

It can really put me off playing the game if I fear that my neighborhoods will become overrun and stop working. :-/

Well I don't have the anti redundancy mod in my game (*gasp*) but I would have imagined so. That's a good point. Perhaps it was only checked for conflict issues, but not updated to cover the new NPCs?

@ Leo

Absolutely, I agree completely. They know that overpopulation can cause problems and yet they insist on creating huge numbers of new townies. -_-
I'm glad that you did research though. Perhaps we could present those results on the BBS? They've just opened a bug reporting thread.


@ Zazazu

I don't have any apartments yet and I've already counted 50 new ones. I'm just happy that I backed up my neighborhood before I installed. I'll probably end up rolling back when a patch comes out.


@ Mistymage

The witch problem happened to me too. I was playing a custom hood to avoid overpopulating my favorite one, and two good witches appeared on a community lot at the same time. :-/ I didn't have any mods in my game at that time. I'm not entirely sure why it happened but I guess it's just another bug to add to the endless pile. I think EA sent Sims 2 out with a bug rather than a bang.


@ Solowren

I suppose we should feel sorry for them. They've certainly received many a beating with the ugly-stick.
Shame we can't just imprison and torture them. Oh wait...we can. Hehehe!

That's the thing, I don't have any apartment buildings at all yet in this particular neighborhood. o.0

It wouldn't be too bad if they weren't all so gosh darn ugly and had such rediculous names; Zaitarrio Pearson anyone?


@ Dragon Slave

Creating new neighbors is fine, but it should only occur if and when they are required. My neighborhood doesn't even have any apartment blocks yet, and already I've seen over 50 of the cretins.

I agree that the townies look absolutely dreadful, and the makeover station only helps with hair and makeup. Changing appearance takes so long with SimPE for each individual sim, so at the moment I've been making them selectable and using the DIY plastic surgery station career reward.


@ Solowren

Killing them must be good for stress relief, and I've been sorely tempted to cow-plant a few of them myself, but doesn't killing them force more townies to respawn in their place?


@ Sarimar

Yes, but this is EA. I noticed how they go through the BBS with a fine toothed comb, warning or banning anyone who does so much as sneeze; I wish they took that attitude with the actual game. -_-
I was warned yesterday for mentioning that a mod to remove the green skin and sparkling skin of witches was available at InSim. Apparently I'd mentioned adult content. o.0


@ Zazazu

Hmm...so if notownie regen doesn't work, I wonder if the nodormieregen does? Perhaps, as they live in the apartments, they are being grouped with dormies?
Glad to hear you haven't been having problems though.


@ Celestra

2 sim days? That's...um...

I think a sim hour is a minute isn't it? So that's 48 minutes...and that means approximately 20 new townies are being spawned every real-time hour! That's even worse than I thought. O_O

I would advise everyone to backup their neighborhoods, that way if there is a townie influx then we can always roll back when a patch is released for the problem. The only other real option is to stop playing our favorite neighborhoods, which doesn't really appeal to me. :-/


@ J. M. Pescado

I know that it's always a concern, especially as some ARE needed. Would it be possible to set a capping-off point when the game has reached a particular number of townies?

But didn't you also report earlier that the townie spawning was just an illusion? Still, I'm thankful that people like you exist to fix mistakes that EA should have remedied before the game was released; especially as it's a mistake they've already made once before.


@ Kutto

They really are just townies, with a hint of secret society members in that each social group has their own style of dress, special greetings, and rewards. It also depends on the 'class' of the apartment as to which social group will appear.


@ Liz

That's a really good idea. I just wish that EA had taken that into account. So now we have the same old ugly townies, plus a whole host of new ones. It would have been nice to make the existing ones more useful. Unfortunately, I'm not entirely sure if it would work or not, as it would be quite complicated (at least for me).


@ ALL

Thank you for your replies. It's nice to meet all of you.

The Good

- Love the Witches; I think that spells and magic are an addition that I have waited far too long for. I think the designs for accessories for them are very good.
- Some of the new furniture is wonderful, especially the socialite and bohemian items.
- Love some of the new outfits, and the wider range of clothing now available for elders.
- I like the new reputation meter, though I haven't figured out all of the benefits available from it yet.
- Love the new spiral staircases.
- Love the fact that you can sell spell ingredients in OFB shops.

The Bad

- I know there are mods now to fix the witchy overlay, but the diseased look of the good witches really bugged me.
- Head witches casting 2 spells as soon as they arrive on any lot is a bit much, and the hail caused by an evil witch can only be stopped by another spell or a use of a weather-machine. My park owner was not happy to say the least.
- Hate some of the clothing, they look like they're filming Star Wars.
- The Witch's castles were pretty poorly designed in my opinion; they could have been made much nicer and more practical.
- I'm not sure what to think of the new secret door. I would have preferred it to be more secretive as the wall paneling is a dead giveaway.

The Ugly

- I was extremely disappointed with the Butler; I remember him being far more useful in 'Superstar'. He is too cheap to hire and he does most things on his own accord rather than being ordered to do them. It is possible to influence him, but should we need to?

Let me set one thing straight; I hate some of the new townies; especially as some of them look like they'd be more at home in a Star Trek episode. I decided, however, that I could live with them...after all...how many can there be?

Lots. Apparently. After checking my character files it seems that these new pests are spawning approximately once every 20 minutes! I've stopped playing my neighborhood in the fear that it will become overrun with character files and if the subsequent bugs don't get in my way, the hundreds of ridiculous names will.

I'm someone who hates townies with a passion, and the only reason that I don't kill them is because I know that more of them will spawn if I do. -_-

Unfortunately, this situation has me worried and I'm playing a different neighborhood until the official patch (haha) arrives which will probably cause more trouble than it is worth. Does anyone yet know if the 'No Townie Regen' hack will work on these rats?