Wow.  Just wow.  I feel like I shouldn't be this surprised by that amount of fail but I am.

jwaas:  when the traits were changing did your sim have the "crazy" moodlet after drinking at the bar?  There are drinks that cause the moodlet and it changings sims' traits until it runs its course.  If I remember correctly, my sims got party animal, great kisser, flirty, and dare devil in place of some of their other traits.  I haven't played for awhile though, the next time I play I'll write down the trait changes.

Has anyone else noticed the effects from the effects machine going through walls?  I noticed it when the lasers from the basement of a club were showing outside of the building.  I also found it disappointing that the fire from the effects machine isn't deadly. 

I've been having the on going sound problem with various things.  It first started with the radio.  I could hear it at full volume when I went into map view, when I zoomed in on my sim in town, and when I was in build/buy mode.  The same thing happens with the music boxes, sim voices, and various other sound effects.  Like you, I end up saving and reloading. 

If a mod came out before a patch or expansion pack then it's out of date.  If a mod is updated post patch/expansion, or if there are no conflicts with the patch/expansion, a creator worth downloading from will let people know in the read me or the upload page. 

Have you tried engaging the mixologist in a conversation and then ending it?  Whenever my mixologists leave their station normal dialogue options pop up.  I socialize with them for awhile and then end the conversation.  After the conversation is over they wander back to their station. 

Mixologists Issue:
I can't move in, date, or become engaged to mixologists.  The options just are not there.  I can get to romantic interest but beyond that there is nothing.  Has anyone else encountered this?

Welcome Wagon:
I have yet to have a welcome wagon visit.  I've started six new games now and have not had a single welcome wagon each time.

I had this issue prior to Ambitions in all saves (new and old) and all towns.  My game wasn't playable so I uninstalled.  After re-installing everything was running fine.  

My theory was the game wasn't able to handle 3x/4x speeds.  I thought this was the problem because my freezes would happen when I would change from 3x to 1x or pause.  Also, the official patches speak of improving game stability at high speeds.  When I play I switch between speeds a lot, so I figured that was the problem.  When I forced myself to play a 1x, using 2x rarely, there were no pauses.

I was also never able to replicate the pauses by loading a previous save.

However, as I said, after re-installing everything was running fine.

Laptop's specs:
Win7 Professional 64-bit
Intel Core Duo 2.0 Ghz
4G ram
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4500 series w/1G ram

Again, I have to recognize the ambient effects they used in this expansion pack.  I've observed the houses in the swamp go through foggy stages while the houses at higher elevations tend to stay clear and sunny.  This distinction definitely helps set the mood for the type of family you're playing.  EA also applied ambient affects to ghost hauntings.  Lights change to different colors (I've seen red, green, and blue so far), fog appears, and music starts to play.  Fight fighting gets a special tune too, I believe.

The new careers are also fun to play and it is nice that your sim can take care of his/herself while on the job.  They work more slowly on their own. 

I love Twinbrook but have one gripe about it.  The tattoo shop.  It looks beyond dirty.  I don't know what shops EA has been hanging around, but the one they provided in the game looks like a nice place to get an infection.  Another issue I have with the game are the Simbots.  They act just like regular sims.  I want robots, not sims who eat scraps and break down when they touch water.  Besides those complaints, and the common errors/glitches, the expansion pack is great.  I'm quite surprised.  The houseplans they used actually look livable, they executed laundry in a way that makes me want to do it, and made careers more exciting.

I feel like a fan-girl for saying this but EA did a lot of things right with this expansion and I'm happy I got it.  If the next expansion packs are of this caliber, I won't mind the $40 price tag as much.

As previously stated, the game runs a lot smoother.  When I saw the size of Twinbrook I was expecting lag, I have none.

There's finally an object that raises fun quickly and doesn't cost thousands of simoleans.  The Gnome Music Box.  The "play" option will max out a half-full fun meter in 30 sim minutes.  I'm sure it's not supposed to do that, but I'm enjoying it.

Careers that are interactive and self-employment.  Ghost busting is going to be my new favorite career (used to be criminal).  You can eat,shat, and watch tv on the job with no real reprecussions.

The notification balloons at the top of the screen being re-vamped.  No more notifications taking up the side of the screen = win.  Though I wish there was a "delete all" option for them.  At least in the old method notifications would disappear over time.  Now they just keep stacking.


This is actually a feature of the game.  The guide (for what that's worth) says that sims can come back, to name a few things, with children, body modifications, and as mummies (if you have WA installed).  Getting a kid is a risk you take by using the time machine.

That's a negative on having a save before it happened.  I've resorted to doing a clean re-install so we'll see if that fixes the problem.  =/  If it doesn't, I'll start saving more often and see if I can catch a lucky save right before it happens.

The solutions discussed would never work, or don't work, for my type of freezing.  I can't move the camera around or click anything when it freezes so I can't see if there's a sim routing fail.  I only play 2-4 sim sized families, so it's not a matter of too many sims.  The only mod I'm running is AM and the few .package files I have are updated and non-conflicting.  (I thought this was a culprit, it wasn't)  I have been decrapifying since the prgram was released for general use.  And, I don't have unneeded programs running in the background, I've manually disabled all the stupid windows crap that's not needed from booting.  

So, none of the solutions work.  =/   This is why I posted my description because the game doesn't lag and catch up, it just stops.  I let it run for an hour once and I got nothing.

ETA:  Thanks for keeping an eye out for it. 

I've been doing more digging and it's not a common issue.  I also haven't found any solutions except saving often and manually closing the game.  One of the patches does note that extended play stability and playing on speeds 3/4 was increased.  This leads me to believe that my style of playing (long binge session on speed 3 mostly), causes the game to become unstable.  *shrug*  I haven't had time to try playing for an extended session at slower speeds though.

The freezing described earlier (tree animations still looping, sims freezing, can't move the camera around, can't click anything, ect) happened to me twice today and has been a regular occurrence since the patches for HELS came out.

I'm using the base game, WA, AM, and FPS limiter.  I do have a fair amount of store items and .package items.  No other mods though.  The freezing happens while on vacation, in the main hood, on community lots, and on the home lot.  Pretty much anywhere.  -_-  The timing seems to be random as well.  I've had it happen at all times of the day, without warning, and I'm failing to notice a pattern.

I'm playing on my laptop, which handles every game I've thrown at it on high settings perfectly fine, except for TS3.  No stuttering in Oblivion, Dragon Age Origins, Battlefield (various), Fallout 3, etc, etc.  This is the only title that freezes and CTDs. 

The only "work around" I've found is the auto-save feature in AM.  I have it set at 30 minutes, but I'm moving it down to 15 because I'm a fast player.  Has anyone else found a real solution to this?  Should we try closing the game every 30 minutes and clearing the cache files?  I'll try this tomorrow and see how it goes.

I also didn't know this.  I never even thought of it.  Thanks.

 Have you even looked over the FAQ or are you doing this on purpose?

ETA:  Read this before posting!  Read MOAR!  Lurk MOAR!

Some people had success with package files if framework was installed in the base game directory, others didn't.  Some had success if with package files if framework was installed in the WA directory, others didn't.  O_o;  

ETA:  Is it all packages or just certain ones?

Have you done all the standard voodoo?  (Clearing caches, putting framework in a different directory than the one it's in now, touched yourself, run the game multiple times to see if the problem still persists, taken out all package files and put them back in one-by-one, etc)

So are you building or just buying?  If you're building you can use newegg.com.   Usually, when you select something important (i.e. a motherboard), it'll list other PC parts that are compatible with that part.  If you're buying check out any retail sites that offer user reviews of products (i.e. newegg.com, bestbuy.com).  If it's a retail site with a physical location then you can select "ship to store" or "store pick-up" to see if there's a store near you with the product.  If you're buying and don't want Windows 7 you're SOL unless you have a different OS laying around.

My advice, try going to some retail sites and exploring their Computers section.  Most let you narrow down what kind of PC you're looking for by price, amount of ram, processor, hard drive size, etc.  Do that and look at user reviews and you'll be fine.

I've also experienced this issue.  I searched to see if there was a solution but I haven't come across anything yet.

I've noticed this as well in my game.  Bikes are affected as well.  I'm running WA after a fresh re-install of the base game, no mods, and no patches.  Maybe a patch fixes this, but I can't justify patching the game after all of the issues the patches have caused people.

I must be missing something...  When in debug mode (testingcheatsenabled) I get no "Debug" option by shift + ctrl clicking on my sims.  I get the options "trigger age transition" and "modify traits for active sim".  If I click on another sim I only get "Make scared".  I still get all the options for the mail box though.

I was really hoping to finish up my custom town.  Hopefully I'm just being stupid and over looking something.

I was thinking this as well.  I got two gnomes, both were "picked" up by my sim at work when he got to the top of the evil criminal career track.  The first one I put in the fenced in garden.  I had a sim kick it and he changed to a different pose but never moved.

I'm strange when it comes to games that have their own time scale.  I always want to slow the game down to at or close to real time.  But, I don't think the sims would benefit from a slow down, I think it just needs the actions to be sped up.  As far as activities before work I treat my sims like I treat myself.  I wake up for work at 5:30a and leave the house by 5:50a to get to work by 6a.  (I'm lucky that I only have a 5min drive to work)  In 20min I get dressed, brush my teeth, grab a lunch to take with me, and grab a bowl of cereal and watch Angel.  I do all of the time consuming stuff the night before.  So, my sims pee and shower right before bed.  Depending on how hungry they are they eat right before bed as well.  When they wake up in the morning (if I feel like they need the moodlet) I send them to the shower and it only takes a few minutes before they're 'fresh' again.  I have them eat a quick meal of cereal or I have them eat left overs.  They spend the rest of their time raising their fun, and skills, by watching tv.  This method has worked quite well for me.

I do think that the hunger and energy bars go down way too fast and I've been tempted to just have my sims buy the hunger reward but then the hunger bar goes down way too slow.  Haha!  I do think that jobs take up way too much of your sim's day though.  But then again it's just like real life.  I work 6a - 3:30p daily.  I have to go to bed by 10p at the latest.  By the time I get home it's almost 4 because I never leave work on time.  That leaves six hours of fun time which never feels like enough.

So, in a way TS3 seems like the most realistic.  There just isn't enough time in the day to do everything you want.  But, unlike real life, sims can survive without having a job quite well in TS3.  A day of exploring brings in big bucks.  A day of romancing a rich sim can pay off big time the next day when you marry them.  A day of writing and painting gives a pretty penny as well.  I tend to play with two sims in a house.  One sim is a crafty sim so that I can get all of my urges to explore out of the way and one sim is an all business sim so I can see what the jobs are like.

Okay, I'm done rambling now.

I completely agree!  What were EAxis thinking when they choose the items they put in the game?  It's not like it would've been hard to include the cheaper shower tub, lights, etc, etc.  They recycled so many other things from TS2 why not more of the useful stuff for middle class sims?

I really wish there was:

• A better selection of meshes for clothes/hair and a better selection for make-up.  I know that EAsxis has never been good at making make-up but all they had to do this time was mock-up where the crap goes.
• Stages.  Most of what I used TS2 for was building.  Not having stages is killing me.
• Cheap looking pillars.  Yea, sounds kinda weird but the cheapest pillar looks too nice, IMO.  What if I want to make a run-down house?
• Optional Cell phones!  One thing that drives me crazy is when my sims out on the town and they keep getting harassed by callers.
• Some kind of influence system.  I used to have friend slaves to do all of my sims chores for them.  Now their forced to do everything themselves unless the cleaner is living with them.  (I do think it's kinda cool that you can ask sims that live with you to "take out the trash" or clean around the house.)
• Some place to do a public woohoo!
• Sims with wants of interacting with other sims.  While I get wants to invite so-and-so over or kiss so-and-so I miss the wants you could get in TS2.  I had a sim once wish to fall in love with someone when she first met him without checking him out first or anything.  I miss the want to woohoo (I still haven't seen it).

Yea, they just faint or get scared (depending on their traits).  I was just exaggerating.

Something that I found helpful when I had a sim that would be best friends with a guy but couldn't get any real romance going was to drag down their relationship to acquaintance or friend and start the romantic interactions over. 

The key thing to look for is "Confess Attraction" under the romance menu.  My method is to have them flirt/hit on their desired mate and when the "confess Attraction" option comes up I add it to the queue.  I usually have about 5/6 interactions in a queue at a time so when the CA option comes up I just add it in.  After CA is chosen I go to the "First Kiss" and "Make out" options.