I wouldn't hold my breath for TS5 if I were you. If the theme of TS3 was Half Baked, the theme of TS4 is Barely Baked. And that means that the theme of TS5 will be Raw Meat.

I really don't think EA is interested in creating simulation games any more. They want to cash in on the name recognition of these games to make cheaper online social knock-offs that tend to make them just as much cash for less effort. First came SimCity '13, then TS4. Next came SimCity BuildIt and ...eventually another Sim mobile game is coming to an app store near you.

Thanks for explaining it better than I did! This doesn't really pertain to whether or not you have the disk version or you downloaded the Origin version, it depends on which version of the Base Game you have, which has to do with when you acquired it.

I installed the BG and EP's on my laptop last November so it gave me the newer version of the BG that won't let you bypass Origin and start the game from the exe. So any BG that was purchased or downloaded within the past year is going to be a problem. I read where those who were downloading Movie Stuff or ITF from Origin were getting a message stating that their game wasn't compatible (or something like that) and they were being directed to uninstall/re-install. This is a lie. There is nothing wrong with people's base games other than the fact that you aren't forced to use Origin. This is just a ploy to get people to install the newer BG version that requires Origin.

I also read that you can click on the "i" and it allows you to proceed with your SP or EP download without re-installing the BG. I haven't personally tested this because I haven't used Origin to download a game for almost a year.

On my laptop I downloaded the BG and EP's from Origin and now I can't run it from the exe either. I already know this is an issue with a newish base game that doesn't allow it now. I just need to uninstall the BG and reinstall my original disk BG and I'll be able to run it from the exe.

Do you have the original base game or do you have the one that says something about 'social features' at the very top of the case? That version won't let you run the game from exe. I've never heard of anyone having an extra "packs" folder, though.

Oh wait, I just checked and now I see the Packs folder. You shouldn't need to go into that folder though because the ts3w.exe file is located in the first Bin folder.

I'm not sure anyone can actually answer your question. It never crashed before you made the lots with the Seasonal Lot Marker? I have an i7 2600k processor with 8 GB RAM and NVIDIA 560TI GPU - which isn't the latest and greatest, but should certainly run this game just fine - and it has crashed on me numerous times since installing Seasons. Lots of people have complained of crashing since Seasons.

Have you tried to replicate the problem in another neighborhood and/or game? If not, try saving your lot to the bin and placing it in another world to see what happens.

Some thoughts: Are you using just one seasonal lot marker on each lot? Are you 'locking common objects in place' before exiting to play mode? Are you trying to change too many objects for each Season?

My favorite world that fits your description is Sunset Valley 2 by Magic_Dancer: http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/427474.page

There are several versions available, one without lots, one with lots, and she even posted her CAW files. It is not updated for all the EP's, though. But I still had a blast placing all the lots myself and I still had room left over.

MySimRealty also has a world out called Storybrook County that she has made some Showtime lots for; you can download the world and ST lots from her site. This is a really cool world with a city on one side and country on the other, but it's large and will likely lag after it gets populated. I've played it for a few sim weeks but have not yet had time to play it longer than that.

And I love Crystalline Cove by Geminagre. She is planning to update it for Showtime but it probably won't be out for a few weeks yet.

After being totally confused about this patching crap, I researched what was going on. Apparently the EP07 unfinished content was not the only issue. Some people also did not have a Showtime Collections folder. So people with the EP07 content OR people with no SHT collections folder were being advised to uninstall the Base game, run CCleaner, patch with the 1.29 superpatcher, then use the incremental patch to 1.31 and the incremental to 1.33.

Those of you who a) have the Showtime collections folder, or b) have the EP07 code and want to keep it, or c) don't give a flying fig about the Showtime collections folder (although I figured if that was wrong other things could be wrong too) can do whatever they wish.

Not only that, but the mod includes moar pet spawnage. If there's one thing I do not need, it's MOAR PETS.

That happened to me - can't remember specifically when but it was before Pets came out but it may have been after the first Store patch.

At first I just tried to reinstall but would get the message that the world was already installed. So then I uninstalled all my custom worlds from the launcher and then reinstalled them again from the launcher, and after that they showed up in the drop down menu and I haven't experienced any problems since then. Morriganrant's method may also work just fine, just thought I'd share my experience also.

Edit: I moved any saved games I wanted to keep to another location first, then put them back after the reinstall.

Do you also have the gothic library set installed in your game? The buzz on the EA forums is that the gothic library lot is conflicting with the FOY. I'm going to try uninstalling it to see if that fixes it.

Is anyone else having any problems with the waterfall animations on the Fountain of Youth? The "drink" and "wish" animations seem to be working but I got no waterfall effects. I took out my latest 'no mosaic' mod and cleared caches but still no waterfall.

If you are referring to the 'plastic' houses, I used them extensively in the past in the first version of Fargo by The Goddess (a world posted here on MATY) with absolutely no problems. EA borked routing even more than usual since Late Night and now I see sims with route fail icons over their heads ALL THE TIME. So yeah, another case of EA breaking something else that used to work just fine. 

I've read about a few people complaining that the World Editor is borking custom worlds. That any time you change anything in a custom world - bulldoze a lot, change a lot from res to comm or vice versa, or add lots using the World Editor, that it might be messing up the world creator's routing - so you end up with route fail and eventually freezing or lagging.

This is largely untested as far as I can tell, and not everyone seems to be experiencing this, but your post made me think of it and wonder if there isn't some truth to it. I personally have seen an increase in route fail icons over sims' heads while playing custom worlds but need to experiement some more to see if I see lag and freezing develop.

(Edited for clarity.)

I played the daycare profession for a short while with no hacks installed. There is not supposed to be a way to control the kids or show the kids' stats other than the info that will pop up when you point the cursor at them or their thought bubbles. The child care worker is supposed to watch them carefully enough so they notice the info and do something about it if need be. Also, at 7pm one mother came to pick up one kid but the other was left for several hours. She finally arrived, paid childcare worker an extra 120 simoleans for 'watching kid while she ran some errands'.

So it may not work like you wanted it to, but it sounds like it's working the way EA intended! 

Did you also try downloading the WA one also? Just curious to see if that fixes it!

This patch thing is ridiculous.  But here is what is posted on the official BS site:

'The way the game updates work is that only the base game and the most recently released and installed title need to be updated - the products in between are ignored as far as version numbers are concerned. You can manually update the other products in between if desired, but this is not necessary.

All expansion and stuff packs released after World Adventures now come in only two game regions:

Region 1 - Disc Version (regardless of geographic location)
Region 7 - Digital Download Version (regardless of geographic location) "

Quoted from: http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/175477.page

That sounds to me as if the only version number that matters now is your latest EP. It doesn't hurt to download the others, but I'm passing unless I experience a problem and think it might help. I haven't even had a chance to see if my photography is borked (apparently it's working for some people). If it's broke, then I'll try downloading these (or at least the WA one) to see if it helps.

I saw a screenshot of the game options page and it looks like you can turn the memory notifications off.

I actually started having this problem, also. My game started to lag noticably at about 20 weeks in. This was around the time I noticed "hauntings" at neighboring houses, complete with the ghostbuster music and special effects. No sim that I had played was employed in the ghost hunter career; some EA sim had been assigned to this and I actually watched him go around and suck up ghosts at the neighbor's house. Very bizarre, and not something I had ever noticed in the game before, although I am not sure if AM was responsible for this or NRass Story Progression, since I was using both at the time. And of course I have no idea if this is even relevant.

Anyway I removed NRass SP which improved things a bit as far as the lagging went, at least for awhile. But it came back, along with sims standing around doing nothing. Later I tried to remove AM and lost all my sim's icons in the UI until I put it back in. I guess I've been pretty lucky because I have been able to remove AM in the past with no problem, which I put down to not using a lot of features like auto commander or whatever it's called. Started playing a relatively new 'hood and it was lagging also. Tonight I checked my CC with Dashboard and didn't find any conflicts except one duplicate file, which I removed, and I merged a bunch of package files. I'm going to start a new hood without either AM or NRass to see what happens, to see if it's some other CC problem, although I doubt I can stand playing without either mod for very long. 

I play on a laptop with an i7 processor, 6 GB memory, and an Nvidia 230M. So not top of the line, but not ancient, either. Like I said, everything was fine until I updated to the latest AM and NRass SP.

It's obviously too late now, but in addition to making sure you are fully patched, and ensuring that you have no background programs interfering, you could have renamed The sims 3 folder in My docs. This recreates all the folders the game needs without any of your downloads, saved games, or CC, and without having to reinstall the whole game. Then you could have added/reinstalled the downloads, CC, worlds, and saved games gradually, which may have isolated the problem if it had to do with add-on content. I had to do this after installing Late Night. I felt it was actually not a bad thing to purge all that extra crap on occasion, although I never isolated any single cause of the problem. I suspect it just had to do with the changes made by LN.

All that said, I am sorry to say your saved game is likely corrupt and unrecoverable. If this is occurring every time you try to open and try to save a brand spanking new game, then yeah, I'd be writing EA and giving them a rant, too.

ETA: Doppleganger sims are occuring for many players, I have seen them in my last 3 saved games; and I see other strange bugs on a regular basis. Just today I probably encountered a half dozen or more when I played one of my neighborhoods, although I haven't played the ghost hunter career in awhile so I have no idea about that error. Sims getting stuck in interactions, or actions not completing. I need to keep better track! Anyway, not sure it's just the bugs that are the problem, it's the serious error that is your problem.

I played your world for a couple of hours today, and didn't experience any problems. I think lots that line up to the road look a lot better, but I didn't notice any overlapping the roads. I'll have to check on that.

This ended up being sort of the project of the day. I added about 40+ Matyian puddings to your save file. I was able to open it just fine and like I said, I added over 40 sims and never had one CTD. If anyone is interested in testing this world with puddings in it, you can get the save file here: http://www.mediafire.com/?ekc7uo8h37koe80

It doesn't include everyone's pudding, since I wasn't quite finished, and I had to make minor changes to about 5 sims due to lack of hair or clothing (which I don't have because I don't like), and of course it doesn't include Pescado since he doesn't have a pudding posted. It also hasn't really been played any longer than it took to add all those puddings, so it shouldn't have any EA generated sims in it, but those things are sneaky and fast so you never know. The library from Sunset Valley does have the bookcases that contain skill books, and I added some to the other library before I zipped up the save. Most of the puddings live in the trailer park or in the plastic boxes, with the exceptions of Lorelei and Witch who are in their own houses that they provided, and a few puddings who live in the one-bedroom homes near the Stadium.

If sharing this file violates some obsure Maty protocol, let me know and I will delete it. Just thought I'd share in case anyone was interested in avoiding some work.  

ETA: I played another version of this save for a few hours today and had no freezing or lag or crashes. Nice, clean world so far.

It's possible that they were a part of or camped a ride in with the CC you reinstalled. When I got them I was able to do as the above poster suggested, which was to just uninstall from the launcher. They don't look like boots in the launcher, though. You can find a post at Crazy Town that links to a list of corrupt CC and I think for the most part they include pics, in case you're not sure what you're looking for.

A month or so ago I had a baby age up into a deformed toddler. A very scary looking deformed toddler. Similar to your squished baby but bigger!

The baby was one of two twins but wouldn't age up at so I tried to force it manually, but the kid kept coming out deformed (I re-did it several times without saving). Finally I just switched households and the baby aged up normally, and I later went back and adjusted his age. This particular 'hood is getting very glitchy so I bet it's just a matter of time before it becomes a BFBVFS.

I can't really tell this from your screenshot; is a simbot holding the squished baby or is the baby part simbot?  If it's part simbot, do you have a hidden trait mod?

I had a mod that made the hidden traits available once and ended up with a child who aged up with the mummy trait. Later I saw a postal worker who moved and walked like a mummy. Talk about slow mail delivery!

Prof P, I had an opportunity to play a bit yesterday and so far all I found was that the house at 11 Palm Road has invisible appliances. The sims can use these items autonomously but players can't direct them to use them - when I try to click on them nothing is there, and when I tried to replace them I got a message that I can't intersect other items. It's the refrigerator, the sink in the bathroom on the upper floor, and the toilet on the lower floor. I have more to explore but so far love the additions you've made since the first version of Coconut Island, btw!

I restarted what was essentially the same 'hood twice and got the same results. First gen consisted of about 10 couples and were active; most of them had children. The second gen was a different story. I mainly controlled one sim who I married off but only two of the second gen got married autonomously and they had one child. None of the second gen'ers moved out of their parents' house, not even the two who married. I'm just starting to see my second gen age up to YA in the second hood but so far I'm seeing the same pattern.

Needless to say it would be a drag to have to go around hooking them up with someone and moving them out. Could it be the lack of housing that occurs as a result of too many EA sims moving in? Or the EA sims needed to support jobs, etc.? I'm going to experiment and see if I evict some of the sims that I don't care about so that more housing is available and see if that makes any difference, but I would be interested in any insight you have about this.

Yeah, I can't say I'm surprised; I saw no real credible evidence mentioned other than hearsay and the quotes of some EA hack. I don't even think deleting your sims while playing the game is a big deal since there are no memories now, if I remember correctly.

But EA SP aside, which we all know is an even bigger load of hooey, those of us who use AM or NRass have seen things like towns that seem to stagnate over time without player intervention. Is that basically related to what your PC can handle? Or will the sims keep multiplying until your PC melts? Or rather, your game becomes a BFBVFS? I'm assuming the pop cap that was added to AM is a way to keep things from getting to that point?