Urgh; AL townies breeding like rats!

[Architect Manic]

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?

[Dragon Slave]

Creating new neighbors is fine, but it should only occur if and when they are required.

Oh, I agree with you there, and by no means do I think EA has an excuse for the train wreck they created.  I just didn't expect any better from them, because they've been so shitty with us in the past.  My expectations for TS3 are low indeed.

I personally don't mind ugly... because I play realistically and there are ugly people in real life.. so, it all works out... but it's the same archetype faces over and over again.  I breed my sims to townies, I want to keep the gene pool diverse.  How is this possibe when they all bear the same faces over and over again?

What really kills me is the randomness of it all.  I've never seen a fish lipped, tan skinned, orange corn rowed man in a kilt named Holden Tang in real life - I don't want to see it in the sims.  On the other hand, I liked the Nightlife downtownies - why can't they design more template characters like those? 

fyi: there are 5 social groups, every consisting of around 10 members. but their purpose is far beyond me.

I see the social groups as a way of creating cliques.  I've tried to do this on my own in the game for years but it never works the way I want it to as they're always bringing home sims from the wrong group (cheerleaders jump off the bus with my goth kids. ).  So I had some hopes that *maybe* I could turn this in my favor - except some of the groups are kinda strange.  (Gearheads )

[Sigmund]

I personally don't mind ugly... because I play realistically and there are ugly people in real life.. so, it all works out... but it's the same archetype faces over and over again.  I breed my sims to townies, I want to keep the gene pool diverse.  How is this possibe when they all bear the same faces over and over again?

What really kills me is the randomness of it all.  I've never seen a fish lipped, tan skinned, orange corn rowed man in a kilt named Holden Tang in real life - I don't want to see it in the sims.  On the other hand, I liked the Nightlife downtownies - why can't they design more template characters like those? 

I don't know if you're interested or not, but I recently downloaded Spookymuffin's face templates (available here: http://www.insimenator.net/showthread.php?t=75472) and they solved this problem for me. They're diverse enough to be realistic, but aren't as drastic as the default ones. Of course, the downside is that only new Townies will be affected by them.

[Zazazu]

I personally don't mind ugly... because I play realistically and there are ugly people in real life.. so, it all works out... but it's the same archetype faces over and over again.  I breed my sims to townies, I want to keep the gene pool diverse.  How is this possibe when they all bear the same faces over and over again?

This is what multiple sets of default replacement sets are for. I have five, plus one that is a melding of the five sets. At least I remembered to switch them out before these dumb neighbors and social group losers were spawned.

Say you have just 300 townies/NPCs in a game (typical player with just a few playables and not using noregen hacks). There are 27 face templates. If they were distributed evenly, that's 10 of every face...which is already a lot of redundancy. But they don't get distributed evenly due to the nature of randomness, so it will be even worse.

[TripleM]

...
So I had some hopes that *maybe* I could turn this in my favor - except some of the groups are kinda strange.  (Gearheads )

probably not, only premade sims, part of "special" households, react accordingly to gestures and stories (script driven), but they dont mind to befriend other sims as well. in addition no member of a group knows another member of the same group.

[Sandilou]

Methinks I see attention seeking fuckwits who think spelling a word is more important than understanding the context and meaning of the sentence it forms a part of.  I can remember when idiocy in Maty was restricted to the Idiotboard.  How on earth did it spread into the Podium?  No wonder I don't post here anymore! Oh the irony!

The too many character files issue seems to come back with each new EP.  JM did a fantastic job fixing it last time, long before EA launched their patch.  No doubt he'll do the same again.

[Zazazu]

No wonder I don't post here anymore!

Feel free to return to that state.

[J. M. Pescado]

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.

Now that you mention it, I *HAVE* spotted what I thought was a phantom extra landlord, but I wasn't paying too much attention cuz I was hunting the cooking skill bug. I will investigate this and squash it.

[NothingToSee]

Ugh - I don't really want any apartment townies, let alone hundreds. I have my favourite hood set up the way I like it, without any EAxis townies.

I already have the game, but I'm probably going to hold off installing for the moment, just in case someone makes a no-spawning hack and a hack to create your own apartment townies.

If I do install it, I don't think I'll be playing that hood for a while.

[lurkmoar]

I also deleted out the contents of both Characters subfolders in the AL game files.

Is that safe to do after you have played your game with AL installed? And also, is it safe to delete the Characters subfolders from other expansions? I have 1200 character files in my favourite (custom) neighbourhood and would love to get rid of at least some of them, but according to what I've read here so far, simply deleting character files is a VBT.

[J. M. Pescado]

No, you cannot simply delete the character files. You must also purge all the internal save references to those files. See "Deleted 2: Electric Boogaloo!".

[lurkmoar]

No, you cannot simply delete the character files. You must also purge all the internal save references to those files. See "Deleted 2: Electric Boogaloo!".

Thank you. I read the "Deleted 2: Electric Boogaloo!" thread twice yesterday, but then saw the reference to deleting Character folders here and wanted to double-check. From what I've read so far, the BFBVFS is approaching... as I have also moved sims between neighbourhoods in my game. Wish I had discovered MATY earlier.
One more question: is it safe to pack a house (after you have evicted the family) and then install it in a clean neighbourhood?

[maxon]

One more question: is it safe to pack a house (after you have evicted the family) and then install it in a clean neighbourhood?

Why bother?  Just pick it up and stick it in the lot bin.  When you place it down again, a copy will remain in the lot bin which you can stick where you like.  I keep a custom neighbourhood with copies of all my own builds in it.  I go in pick up what I want, put it back again immediately, and use the copy in the lot bin to place elsewhere in game.  Then delete from the lot bin when I'm done - because I like to keep the lot bin fairly empty.

[lurkmoar]

Why bother?

  I guess after over 50 hours of reading about all the supposedly innocuous things that can - surprise! - turn your game into a BFBVFS one becomes quite paranoid...

[Zazazu]

No, you cannot simply delete the character files. You must also purge all the internal save references to those files. See "Deleted 2: Electric Boogaloo!".

From C:/ProgramFiles/...etc? If so, I borked the last two EP. Ah well.

[Sandilou]

No wonder I don't post here anymore!

Feel free to return to that state.

Mmm...is that you granting me permission to do so?  Did I miss something?

It used to be that the Podium was the place to ask questions to JMP - not get torn to shreds over spellings by people you weren't even addressing the question to. Which brings me back to the real issue in hand;

Is the AL situation with character files so dire that the best advice is to delay playing that EP until a fix is posted, or is it a minor problem, that really depends on how good/fast your pc's processor is?  I estimate that with nothing restricting spawning, it would still take several months of non-stop play to reach the maximum number of character files; I remember you (JMP) saying as much in a thread that must remain dead somewhere around here.

[doren]

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.

Great! I spent the last two hours thinking about a tool to do that.

I am not sure if it will stop the respawning though. Generally, I never had a problem with newly generated townies, it very rarely happened, not even when I moved some townie teens to university. But now I see this massive increase in population and I need a way to control it. I started the game, loaded a residential house and began writing, I did not play at all. When I minimised the game I noticed that the folder with the character files was still open and there was a new character. I have mainly played Strangetown so far and it already has ca. 30 more new characters than Pleasantview, about 10 of them were created last night. I really do not want to go through the hassle of deleting all those sims, so I begin to worry about playing my game now. It does not seem to be a problem for everyone, but my apartment dwellers (I have two apartment buildings in Strangetown) are invading the hoods.

[Celestra]

fyi: there are 5 social groups, every consisting of around 10 members.

That doesnt explain then how i added one single appt block to my neighbourhood with 4 flats in it and now i have an extra 206 characters in my char folder and looking in clean installer they are ALL pictures and names of new social townies

[Zazazu]

1. Download newest notownieregen, as old single file wasn't the shinier stomping version.
2.
3. Profit.

[J. M. Pescado]

So I had some hopes that *maybe* I could turn this in my favor - except some of the groups are kinda strange.  (Gearheads )

You know, blue collar factory-worker types.

[Moon]

To me a gearhead is someone who is into cars/engines/big machines.

My personal strategy for this EP was to start a new TS2 folder to play from. When the spawning issue is worked out I'll do the necessary and return to my legacy family with a cleaned up Apartment Life template/game

[Architect Manic]

1. Download newest notownieregen, as old single file wasn't the shinier stomping version.
2.
3. Profit.

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

So I had some hopes that *maybe* I could turn this in my favor - except some of the groups are kinda strange.  (Gearheads )

You know, blue collar factory-worker types.

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.

[jwaas]

Oh my goodness gracious yes, I think AL generates more townies every time you move a Sim into an apartment.  I believe I've already started to see identical (weird) looking townies with different (weird) names.  Oddly, it seems there are rather more elders thrown into the mix, not just adults.  I think my newly minted good warlock brings home a newborn townie from work every single day.  Why he couldn't just bring Benjamin Longnose or good old Goopy or someone like that, is beyond me.  So far I haven't seen any child or teenager "apartmenties" though.

Since I "reboot" the game very often, usually at least once or twice a month, it probably won't get to be a problem.  But I'll take the advice and get notownieregen, as well as looking into nopedostalkers (which JMP advised me takes care of some of the annoying crap that NPCs constantly do, getting in the way of necessary controllable Sim activities, such as taking out the trash and going to work).

As for the ugliness of the townies, I use the InSimenator to grab hold of practically every male and at least 50% of the females, and then beautify them.  Presto, no more frog lips or beak noses.  Even the rather pretty NPCs usually have incorrect proportions of their facial features -- eyes are almost always too large, for instance, and mouths too small, like anime characters.  But this feature of the InSimenator requires UNI as it seems to work off the career reward, only without giving those nightmarish "failures."

[virgali]

Has anybody's sim brought a pregnant friend at home from work? I'm pretty sure she's not a pre-made playable sim. I'm unable to check atm since I'm trying to figure out a bug. None of the pre-made Belladonna cove families have Blond pregnant sims yes?

[Kyna]

Has anybody's sim brought a pregnant friend at home from work? I'm pretty sure she's not a pre-made playable sim. I'm unable to check atm since I'm trying to figure out a bug. None of the pre-made Belladonna cove families have Blond pregnant sims yes?

I've had sims bring home pregnant playables before AL.

The only blonde pre-made in BDC is Jessica Peterson, and she's not pregnant.  If you're not running with empty templates, it could be Samantha Ottomas (she's blonde), who was added to the SimBin with Seasons.  She starts out with a job in the Education career and is pregnant with twins.  I've had sims bring home sims from the SimBin before.

BTW, I think you misinterpreted the title of this thread.  This thread has nothing to do with the possibility of pregnant townies.