Apartment Life Borkiness, or how i ended the world in 1 hour.

[Faizah]

Sadly, no. If the children and toddlers get taken by the social worker, I suupose you could adopt them, but otherwise... Nope. You can move them in, but they don't count.

[Karen]

Karen, were you using Pes's tombstonemovefix at the time, or no?  Did you have other surviving members of the family at the time? And other playable families in other apartments?

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

[labeth]

I've got an interesting Uni-screwup.

I moved several sims into a dorm lot. After about a semester, I merged another student household into the dorm, as her roommate graduated. When she arrived on the lot, I got the usual dormies moving out message, and the dormie unclaimed the room. I then had the moving-in-sim claim the door. However, the room remains darkened and the furniture invisible. If I turn on buy mode and try to place furniture in there, it indicates with the red and green outline that the items in the room are still there, but are invisible. So... yeah.

I do have hacks in, but all but maybe two have been updated by now.

[jsalemi]

That's an old bug -- haven't seen that one in a while.  Move the sim you just moved in back out to the student bin, and have her move back in -- the room should be fine.

[labeth]

How odd-- that's a new one for me. Thanks.

[sirnh]

....
When Faith's stone appears on the sidewalk, Herb's magically disappeared:

And this message pops up, saying the stones have been moved to P.U.R.E, a downtown nightclub, no less:  
<image snipped>
Then after Grimmy finds some relief in their vacant apartment...
<image snipped>
...I noticed that both stones were gone from the lot.  The game warned me the stones would only appear on the community lot as indicated if I saved, so I did.  After Grimmy left, I went into the Patel's apartment to see what the Goodie's apartment looked like at this point, and their door said "Vacant":
<image snipped>
Then I went to P.U.R.E and there were no stones anywhere on the lot. I've also checked out several other lots, both in Downtown and in Belladonna, but no sign of the missing stones.  I can't figure why P.U.R.E was picked by the game as a destination for the tombstones in the first place -- has this now just become a random thing?      Herb & Faith had never visited there;  the only DT lot they'd been to was the SugarCube Bowling Alley. None of my Belladonna residents had ever been to P.U.R.E   Besides the DT hood, I had attached no other districts or subhoods to this hood. 

I have the feeling their stones have just vanished altogether - a bug we had before (which EP? I can't remember), which I'm not certain was ever properly fixed.  I'd be interested in comparing stories about this issue because this is pretty messy.  I'll post at BBS once I know for certain it's not Pescado's tombstonemovefix that has caused this.  I highly doubt it did, actually, because this kind of randomness would perhaps explain why some players are seeing Olivia Riley's tombstone at the Art Gallery and others are not. 

Well, I got the same thing happening, just 2 days ago. I had a elder (male) sim living in the appartment, when he died the game said his tombestone was moved to 'university road 124'. The problem is that I can't even find that lot... I visited all lots in all neighbourhouds by now and I haven't found the tombstone...

[Alex]

....
When Faith's stone appears on the sidewalk, Herb's magically disappeared:

And this message pops up, saying the stones have been moved to P.U.R.E, a downtown nightclub, no less:  
<image snipped>
Then after Grimmy finds some relief in their vacant apartment...
<image snipped>
...I noticed that both stones were gone from the lot.  The game warned me the stones would only appear on the community lot as indicated if I saved, so I did.  After Grimmy left, I went into the Patel's apartment to see what the Goodie's apartment looked like at this point, and their door said "Vacant":
<image snipped>
Then I went to P.U.R.E and there were no stones anywhere on the lot. I've also checked out several other lots, both in Downtown and in Belladonna, but no sign of the missing stones.  I can't figure why P.U.R.E was picked by the game as a destination for the tombstones in the first place -- has this now just become a random thing?      Herb & Faith had never visited there;  the only DT lot they'd been to was the SugarCube Bowling Alley. None of my Belladonna residents had ever been to P.U.R.E   Besides the DT hood, I had attached no other districts or subhoods to this hood. 

I have the feeling their stones have just vanished altogether - a bug we had before (which EP? I can't remember), which I'm not certain was ever properly fixed.  I'd be interested in comparing stories about this issue because this is pretty messy.  I'll post at BBS once I know for certain it's not Pescado's tombstonemovefix that has caused this.  I highly doubt it did, actually, because this kind of randomness would perhaps explain why some players are seeing Olivia Riley's tombstone at the Art Gallery and others are not. 

Very interesting. Here's an idea; try looking at the lot inneighborhood view. Can you see a tombstone near the phone? You may need to visit the lot several times for it to appear. For some weird reason Olivia Riley's tombstone is, by default, at the Belladonna Cove Art Museum. However you need to visit the lot several times before it will actually show up (so it can be interacted/moved). You can see the neighborhood imposter od the tombstone before it appears on the lot though.

That's a really strange message though, and a testament to EA logic. I hope there'll be a hack to get rid of that (what is wrong with just getting the neighbors to move it)? Weird how it picks P.U.R.E. and not, say, one of the default cemetaries (Gothier Green Lawns and Gamesend Grounds). And yes, the aspirations are quite seriously borked at the moment.

And sirnh, I believe 124 University Road is a shopping center in Sim State University.

[dream_operator]

I noticed that my default pet eye replacements are no longer working.  Has this happened to anyone else?

[Devonian]

I have one problem with AL that I can't work around right now.  Riley can't call anyone on the phone.  I get the message that he doesn't know anyone.  He knows the people in the building and met someone on the street.  He has a 100 relationship score with Cho, too.
I wonder... can the residents of the apartments call each other?
I also notice that they can't invite their building neighbors over for a meal or to visit.
Is this what the designers intended?  I would like to see more neighborly interactions available.
This EP could really be so good. 

[jsalemi]

<sigh>  Please read the last page or two of this thread to see that the Riley/Cho lot is borked, and how to fix it.

[MissKitty]

I'm sorry if you find this off-topic, but... I've just read through these past 24 pages (yes, all of them!) and I'm slightly scared of the sheer amount of borkage.

So, I have a question...

Provided that I get the currently available MATY fixes, is it worth installing or should I just hold off for now? Is the game generally playable, in your opinions, or are there simply too many annoyances?

[BrokenRobot]

Most of us are just playing Belladonna Cove or another throwaway hood for now.  I'm personally not touching my regular hood with a ten foot pole until someone figures out what's going on with the mass invasion of new townies.

[squish]

Has anybody had a Sim die on an apartment lot yet?  Bizarre to say the least. 

Jessica Peterson who lives alone in Belladonna died in my game and the message said her grave was moved to Central Park, which I figured was the cemetary. After reading your post, I checked and it's not the cemetary, but her grave is actually there in Central Park.

[J. M. Pescado]

Yeah, too bad it's NONRETRIEVEABLE because community lots don't save and often won't manifest gravestones until someone GOES there.

[Zazazu]

Provided that I get the currently available MATY fixes, is it worth installing or should I just hold off for now? Is the game generally playable, in your opinions, or are there simply too many annoyances?

Go ahead and install, but not without the DC. Specifically, you need at least alfixes and notownieregen due to EA's new flavor of character file inundation.

Most of us are just playing Belladonna Cove or another throwaway hood for now.  I'm personally not touching my regular hood with a ten foot pole until someone figures out what's going on with the mass invasion of new townies.

I'm playing with my regular 'hoods now. Seriously, notownieregen! My secondary 'hood is still at 21 character files after three days of play (no movement since the basic service NPCs were spawned), and my primary 'hood didn't have an increase the last time I played despite flitting between community lots.

[Alex]

I'm not touching my hoods until someone fixes the everchanging sim portraits. Because I'm very fussy, particular and strange, I do NOT want to go into my neighborhoods and have to change 200+ portraits back to what they were. I'd fix it myself, if I knew what, exactly, it is that they have changed (what controls the portraits)?

[Process Denied]

I was at a Community lot and I summoned the NPC witch over so my Sim can become friends, and the game re spawned another good witch?  So if the NPC is controllable for less than a second, the game thinks they need a replacement?  And what is up with all the the incessant greeting?  When I was playing hack free, it actually would stomp the query and it was almost impossible to get them to do anything.

[BrokenRobot]

I'm playing with my regular 'hoods now. Seriously, notownieregen! My secondary 'hood is still at 21 character files after three days of play (no movement since the basic service NPCs were spawned), and my primary 'hood didn't have an increase the last time I played despite flitting between community lots.

I haven't installed notownieregen yet because I haven't yet seen it explained what the AL version actually does.  Does it keep the game from spawning any townies at all now?  I just want to squash the never-ending spawning of the new social group townies.  Ideally, I would also want the game to continue replacing townies who die or become playable, but I suppose that can be done manually.

Edit:  Okay, I've done a bit of testing with a rebooted Pleasantview.  Before loading with AL installed, it had 358 character files.  After loading, it had 447.  So I guess AL automatically creates 89 NPCs/townies when installed, and notownieregen doesn't do anything to hinder this.  After visiting community lots and moving people into apartments, the count is still at 447, which is similar to your results.  So notownieregen does seem to completely stop the continual spawning of new AL townies, instead populating apartments and community lots with the new townies that are created at install, which is definitely how it should be.

[jsalemi]

Notownieregen keeps the spawning of social townies (and others) to the minimum required by the game, and yes it does prevent the game from spawning replacement townies. Combine it with antiredundancy to keep the number of NPCs (maids, delivery folks, etc) to the minimum required, and you're all set.

[BrokenRobot]

Antiredundancy isn't necessary if you don't mind having a few different sims of each NPC type, right?  The unlimited NPC spawning thing hasn't been a problem since BVp0...right?

[jsalemi]

Right, the unlimited spawning thing was fixed. And yea, you don't need antiredundancy if you don't mind replacement NPCs respawing if you marry one in or otherwise make one playable.

[id]

Too late, too tired, so I stopped reading after 15 pages... 
Has anyone tried to use the resurrection spells for the witches yet? 
My evil warlock can make a zombie -the spell comes up when he points to the gravestone, executes fine and he gets a zombie.
NONE of my good witches can perform the resurrection spell.  they can mourn and move the grave and that's it.  I specifically tested in a test environment with no CC

also:  school bus only comes in apartment lots I've built myself.  Eaxian pre-made apartments means no school bus ever...
(this is actually not the first time that I've noticed that some things don't work in the premade houses, neighborhoods etc. - for instance for a long time I was wondering  how you rake leaves, the few that fell never stayed on the ground... until I went from the eaxian pre-made hood to one of my own custom hoods - then suddenly the leaf piles showed.  I can't think of more, but I know I've had other experiences like this.)

[Faizah]

Too late, too tired, so I stopped reading after 15 pages... 
Has anyone tried to use the resurrection spells for the witches yet? 
My evil warlock can make a zombie -the spell comes up when he points to the gravestone, executes fine and he gets a zombie.
NONE of my good witches can perform the resurrection spell.  they can mourn and move the grave and that's it.  I specifically tested in a test environment with no CC

Does the resurrection always result in a zombie? If so, it might be an 'evil' spell, thus unavailable to good witches. Also, if there is a good version of the spell (there should be, but this is EAxis...), check that the good witch has a high enough magic skill, and high enough alignment. ('Check abilities' on the spell book, skill and alignment are shown above the abilities list.)

[fatkitty]

I believe that only evil witches can do the zombie spell.  It wouldn't be available for good witches.

I've had the school bus come on EA built apartment lots.

[Zazazu]

Edit:  Okay, I've done a bit of testing with a rebooted Pleasantview.  Before loading with AL installed, it had 358 character files.  After loading, it had 447.  So I guess AL automatically creates 89 NPCs/townies when installed, and notownieregen doesn't do anything to hinder this.  After visiting community lots and moving people into apartments, the count is still at 447, which is similar to your results.  So notownieregen does seem to completely stop the continual spawning of new AL townies, instead populating apartments and community lots with the new townies that are created at install, which is definitely how it should be.

Clean templates will eliminate those 89 AL uglies. There is one in Peasantry in the ongoing thread.