AL Patch issued at EA website

[Alex]

No fixes for any of the real problems. Surprise, surprise...

It says that "buildings no longer overlap downtown lots". Did they find a way to fix it, or did they just remove the building from the hood altogether?

[Liz]

I just bury the newspaper. It eliminates all the newspaper-related annoyances, including that damn kid. Newspapers are barbaric, anyway.

That kid does annoy me (rather a lot, really, for some reason), but I keep the newspaper coming on home-farming lots as a free source of daily compost. Likewise, I don't get *too* bent out of shape when my rarely-employed nanny starts dropping bottle-bombs all over the place just because Junior's pulling on the bunny ear at the precise second she seems to think he needs to eat something. For lots without gardening, though... yeah, that kid needs to be stopped.

The game should not be encouraging people to cut down all those trees, now that we all have televisions and internet access and can see the news by other means.

Yeah, like TVs and computers are utterly eco-friendly as opposed to old-fashioned paper, which is theoretically 100% sustainable, is 100% recyclable, is a handy carbon sink, is a useful resource for lighting fires, is useful in the lavatory, and is especially invaluable for lining the bottom of a litter-tray when house-training kittens.

None of which, aside from recycle/compost, can be applied to the game, but I know that's not your point.

I'd be in favour of an all-purpose paper product that's manufactured for purchase in order to be used in multiple ways, as you describe (particularly for sinking my excess carbon ), especially if said product came without all those dyes and inks applied, but as a means of conveying daily news, it seems a wasteful and inefficient use of our CO₂ scrubbers. I think the main difference between the 'paper vs. electronics for news' arguments, though, is that while the TV/computer can be used to get daily news in addition to the other uses to which we usually put them, newspapers are manufactured for the express purpose of disseminating news, after which some find additional use for them before their disposal, so as not to have wasted all that paper simply for getting a crossword and some news, most of which they didn't read, anyway.

[J. M. Pescado]

The other drawback to newspapers is that they can only get yesterday's news. The computer can get you news as it happens, from a wide variety of sources all at once, including sources that will tell you bad news that the normal media won't.

[HomeschooledByTards]

The other drawback to newspapers is that they can only get yesterday's news.

In some cases you don't even get yesterday's news. My mom regularly gets her local Sunday newspaper by 8:00 p.m. on Saturday night.

[nowhereme]

The other drawback to newspapers is that they can only get yesterday's news.

In some cases you don't even get yesterday's news. My mom regularly gets her local Sunday newspaper by 8:00 p.m. on Saturday night.

Here we don't have a Sunday newspaper, we have a weekend newspaper. So, Saturday morning you get delivered Friday's news and then nothing again until Monday morning.

[Zazazu]

Yeah, like TVs and computers are utterly eco-friendly as opposed to old-fashioned paper, which is theoretically 100% sustainable, is 100% recyclable, is a handy carbon sink, is a useful resource for lighting fires, is useful in the lavatory, and is especially invaluable for lining the bottom of a litter-tray when house-training kittens.

None of which, aside from recycle/compost, can be applied to the game, but I know that's not your point.

I'd be in favour of an all-purpose paper product that's manufactured for purchase in order to be used in multiple ways, as you describe (particularly for sinking my excess carbon ), especially if said product came without all those dyes and inks applied, but as a means of conveying daily news, it seems a wasteful and inefficient use of our CO₂ scrubbers. I think the main difference between the 'paper vs. electronics for news' arguments, though, is that while the TV/computer can be used to get daily news in addition to the other uses to which we usually put them, newspapers are manufactured for the express purpose of disseminating news, after which some find additional use for them before their disposal, so as not to have wasted all that paper simply for getting a crossword and some news, most of which they didn't read, anyway.
[/quote]There's also the fact that newspapers publishers always publish over what demand is. Look at the paper boxes on Michigan Avenue here. Even with the many that are stolen by the homeless to do whatever with (often, to attempt to sell), at the end of the day most of the boxes are half full. All that paper is basically wasted. Yes. It's recycled. But recycling takes energy as well.

Then you have the litter factor. People throw bits of papers all over the place (yes, they are asses). You trip over them. They look trashy. They are, again, wasted, and I doubt that even 10% of littered newspaper gets to the recycling bins. Most go to trash to rot (albeit relatively quickly).

[Ruann]

Well, it looks like the "fix" to the neighborhood decoration issue was to replace the big honking decoration that ate the mini tower with said mini tower.  So, Downtown looks better on playable lots now, but the other building is now missing. 

[Havelock]

Well, it looks like the "fix" to the neighborhood decoration issue was to replace the big honking decoration that ate the mini tower with said mini tower.  So, Downtown looks better on playable lots now, but the other building is now missing. 

The other building is replaced with the NL builing. The AL building is removed now after Patch.

[Zazazu]

More specifically, they unreplaced the building.

[Ruann]

Except for the thumbnail.  At least, in my fresh The Sims 2 folder that I had it make after I patched.

[Moon]

I'm also sad to see there was no fix for school bus issue. Which was a problem for me, even in a vanilla game. I tested it with different Maxis-made lots and it did not seem to depend on whether or not the lot had a "Walk to" sign.

Also sad to see no fix for landlord's pizza party suckage (where the landlord wont leave after). I have not played enough to witness this yet, but have seen this complained about in multiple places.

I'll be staying patch free, at least for the time being.

[Emma]

Oops, they broke it?

o Bathtubs from The Sims 2 Kitchen & Bath Interior Design Stuff can now be tinkered with.



Why does that include having to make it §1? 

(Tried with and without LD's fix for the Stuff Pack items and it is still the same. Bloody EAxis.)

[Lord Darcy]

Oops, they broke it?

o Bathtubs from The Sims 2 Kitchen & Bath Interior Design Stuff can now be tinkered with.

<snip>

Why does that include having to make it §1? 

(Tried with and without LD's fix for the Stuff Pack items and it is still the same. Bloody EAxis.)

Gah!! Someone who patched AL please send me updated Overrides.package. Why can't these idiots ever once get things right?
Leave SP objects alone! [/Chris Crocker]

ETA: Thanks, Emma. I just looked into the file. They messed up the price of K&B bathtub in "updated" Overrides. In addition, they tanked the Hygiene rating too, from Expensive to Moderate. Grrr.

New version of fix is on the way.

[J. M. Pescado]

I'm also sad to see there was no fix for school bus issue. Which was a problem for me, even in a vanilla game. I tested it with different Maxis-made lots and it did not seem to depend on whether or not the lot had a "Walk to" sign.

I'm not going to fix the no school bus issue, period. In *MY* day, we had to WALK to school, through the snow, uphill and against the wind both ways, while the Japanese would try to bomb us! AND WE LIKED IT! Since we now have the "Walk To" option, the school bus is entirely superfluous, anyway. AND WE LIKED IT!

[Inge]

You forgot the change from thruppence.

[Gwill]

o Sims with Body Skills from 1 to 4 are now susceptible to death by Murphy Bed

Do they serioulsy mean 1 to 4 and not 0 to 4 (or 0-3)?

o Correct Sim names will now be displayed for all Networking Messages

This is the only one I've noticed and been annoyed by.

[Lord Darcy]

Ok, here's the updated version of SP objects Fix for AL. Please confirm whether K&B tub was properly fixed in patched AL, including b0rked catalog price and Tinker function.

You might have to replace existing K&B bathtub. I missed the b0rked GUID problem in the previous version.

ETA: New version is now up in DarcyLand.

[Alex]

Well, it looks like the "fix" to the neighborhood decoration issue was to replace the big honking decoration that ate the mini tower with said mini tower.  So, Downtown looks better on playable lots now, but the other building is now missing. 

The other building is replaced with the NL builing. The AL building is removed now after Patch.

So now Belladonna Cove looks stupid? Well at least it's not as bad as Downtown and is easily fixable (if someone is kinda enough to reintroduce the building as a seperate object).

[Fat D]

o Sims with Body Skills from 1 to 4 are now susceptible to death by Murphy Bed

Do they serioulsy mean 1 to 4 and not 0 to 4 (or 0-3)?

o Correct Sim names will now be displayed for all Networking Messages

This is the only one I've noticed and been annoyed by.

0 should have been working all the time, but 1-4 are new. The minimum body skill to be save appears to have been foolishly set to 0.05 (or was it 0.005) instead of 5.

[Menaceman]

I've just tried to install the patch and I just keep getting an error. It tells me to uninstall and reinstall AL. I am going to but so far I haven't managed to uninstall the pack yet as it seems to have frozen my 'Add or Remove Programs' window.

Oh and thanks for the fix Darcy.

[jsalemi]

I've just tried to install the patch and I just keep getting an error. It tells me to uninstall and reinstall AL. I am going to but so far I haven't managed to uninstall the pack yet as it seems to have frozen my 'Add or Remove Programs' window.

This happens if you changed one of your game files (maybe you forgot to put the original .EXE back in if you're using a no-cd version, or edited one of graphics files), or sometimes if you made objects.package read-only.  You should get a pop-up window that tells you what file it's barfing on - you may have to move the main patch window to see it, since it sometimes pops up under the main window.  Fix/replace the file it complains about, and run the patch install again.

[Simsample]

For anyone who is interested, I've extracted the missing CaNH building (the reflective 'H' building that came with AL) from the P0 3D packages. It's of course only for those with AL P1, and works okay in my game so I'd appreciate if others could test it too.
http://www.mediafire.com/?s2wd5etwsd6

[BrokenRobot]

There is now a no-cd crack for the patched version at GameCopyWorld:  http://m0001.gamecopyworld.com/games/pc_the_sims_2_apartment_life.shtml

[Emma]

o Apartment Mailboxes now behave properly when Sim attempts to retrieve a Love Letter

This is still erroring for me.

[Menaceman]

I managed to patch ok in the end. I'm one of those fools who still decided to actually purchase the disc and play the 'official' way. I'd forgotten to remove some files from the Overrides folder. I only figured it out as they were the only files left in the directory after Add/Remove Programs froze.

I'll be trying out the H building too, Simsample.