Urgh; AL townies breeding like rats!

[Architect Manic]

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?

[Celestra]

No idea of that hack works but i guess i am going to have to try it as i already have 160 new townies since installing AL

[Dragon Slave]

Well... how else did you think they were going create 'neighbors' that move in with our sims?  After uni and bv, I could tell this was exactly the way it would turn out.    I hate every gorilla faced, darkskinned, blond mohawked abomination it throws my way. 

No townie Regen is in the al directory, so it should be compatable... It's worth a shot to see

[Solowren]

Notownieregen hasn't worked for me. I've been killing off the ugly new townies. Every time I'd load a lot, a new character file would pop into my Sims 2/Neighborhoods/N004/Characters folder.

[Sarimar]

Well that is just f**ed up! Why on earth do they let this happen with every damn EP? And by them I mean EAxis. You'd think they'd check their codes or whatever after the whole tourguide hassle with BV.

[Zazazu]

Mine seems to have stopped at a total of 21 new character files (does not make me happy to have any but the witches...my goal for this 'hood was to absorb the 30 I had). I do have notownieregen, nodormieregen, nostrayrespawn. I also deleted out the contents of both Characters subfolders in the AL game files.

For three sim days, about four game starts, the only new character file I had was to make the landlady. Who is an unmitigated bitch, by the way.

[Celestra]

No Townie Regen NOT working for me with these AL townies

In the space of 2 simdays play it has created another 16 townies with the hack in the game

[J. M. Pescado]

No townie regen does not cover the Social Group Townies. I will consider making it do so, though. I already researched what needed to be done, I just haven't figured out whether disabling it will break the game.

[kutto]

What purpose do the Social Group townies serve? It just seemed like they were townies that dressed similarly.

[Liz]

Being completely ignorant of the logistics of the Social Group wankery, I'll ask anyway. Is it possible to alter somehow the character files of the townies you already have in order to induct them into the Social Groups, thereby eliminating the need for the EAfug swarm? Thinking, it would probably require an updated SimPE or similar, but would such a thing work in theory?

[SJActress]

Is it possible to alter somehow the character files of the townies you already have in order to induct them into the Social Groups, thereby eliminating the need for the EAfug swarm?

This is what EAxis should have done, the dumbasses.  I don't really care that I have ugly townies (I make "pretty" Sims, so I need some variety in the gene pool), but I hate that the game is creating MOAR character files for a feature that I haven't used or seen.  Where the hell ARE these new townies?  I can't get more than 2 or 3 people on the same community lot most of the time, and they're usually the SAME 2 or 3 people!

[Inge]

Just put some of your other townies into one or more of the social group families.  I think 0.71.13 is probably ok for doing that.

[Architect Manic]

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.

[J. M. Pescado]

According to the code I've scanned, the spawning is already limited to what is necessary to populate your apartment buildings. You shouldn't be getting an enormous influx unless your apartment buildings are massive.

[Architect Manic]

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

[Leo]

I ran the game (Belladonna Cove) in windowed mode and checked the neighborhoods/E001/characters directory:
every time my Sim went from one comm-lot to another 2 new character files were created. And upon returning home, 1 additional was created.
I already have more 520 files in the character directory  --  without any CAS Sims or subhoods!


This is far more than "what is necessary to populate your apartment buildings" I think?

[Zazazu]

According to the code I've scanned, the spawning is already limited to what is necessary to populate your apartment buildings. You shouldn't be getting an enormous influx unless your apartment buildings are massive.

Most definitely not what's happening. I have seven more this play session for a total of 28 spawned by AL. The only apartment lot I have in play has four total units, one occupied by playables.

[mistymage]

I'm not sure if this is a bug or not but I was playing it a custom hood which was brand new.. I sent my sim to a community lot in the hopes of meeting a witch.  He did.  As a matter of fact while he was talking to the super duper evil witch a second super duper evil witch appeared.  The 2 witches shot spells at one another and then gabbed like bestest buddies.  The only hax I had in at the time were maty-al.zip ones.

One thing that might have caused the second witch to show up was I had clicked on the first as soon as I saw her.  I wasn't sure if she would do a "ninja" and I wanted my sim to try out the witch craft stuff.  Since I was focused on my sim I have no idea how long the witch had been on the lot but she was still standing next to the phone when I selected her and set the command to greet her.  By the time my sim made his way over to her she had moved to the sidewalk and set off a storm.

I'm guessing that having 3 of each type of witch is normal but I thought, like the vampires, you would only see one of each unless something happened to them.. death or a change of status?

[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?

Indeed it does, which is the issue at hand. I want the uglies DEAD, and I don't want new uglies once that is accomplished.

[Architect Manic]

@ 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!

[Solowren]

Shouldn't antiredundancy prevent multiple witches of the same alignment?

[Architect Manic]

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?

[Solowren]

I only mention it because over at Simbology someone told me antiredundancy is still allowing three landlords to spawn. Apparently it's "supposed" to be like that.

I don't like a lot of the game the way it's "supposed" to be- that's why I use hacks!

[Architect Manic]

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. :-/

[TripleM]

fyi: there are 5 social groups, every consisting of around 10 members. but their purpose is far beyond me. all, what it seems, you get, is +10 daily relation (in addition to normal daily relation shift), when you choose the correct greeting gesture, and further +10 daily relation, when telling the correct story, when interacting with a member of a group. multiple uses within one interaction cycle dont give multiple boni, it even seems, you only get these boni for the first interaction cycle only. so only useful for socialy incapable sims, imho, and not that much. right gesture and story, are quite hard to guess.

so long,