Big Fiery Ball Visible From Space

[BlueSoup]

Well, it finally happened.

My game turned into a BFBVFS, and I have no clue as to why.  First, the cursors in the game were all wonky, and then the toddlers in my E-Mail challenge had LTW's (Wednesday wanted to eat 200 grilled cheese sandwiches and Pugsley wanted to become a professional party guest).  I exited the lot without saving and tried again - same thing.

I shut down the game and restarted, this time going to my Self-Sims lot, who also has a baby, to check if she had the same problem.  After seeing the stuck baby thing for the first time, I made the baby selectable and discovered she was aspiring to have 50 First Dates. 




So, I decided it's not worth the weirdness and I deleted the Sims 2 folder.  I mourn this, since I had more things happening and more families than ever before. 

[windy_moon]

Oh, Blue!    I'm so sorry!!

Not much more to say...... 

[gali]

Don't be sad, Blue. A game is made to be played over and over again....

I reinstalled TS2+ EPs more than 20 times, each time lost the present families, and started other. It is quite interesting too....

[Sleepycat]

It's hard when you lose a neighborhood/sims that your attached to, I'm sorry about your loss 

[cwieberdink]

Blue, I'm so sorry.  I remember when I lost my neighborhood.  I actually spent days reconstructing my family in SimPE with memories, family connections, etc.  Then when NL came, I used SimPE as backup -- mistake.  I lost everything again and decided to just start over.  Now I've got all new people and I'm having a blast.  Time will heal......

 

C

[BlueSoup]

I'm just sad because I had spent a lot of time on the lots and houses of all the MATY Sims I had downloaded and started playing, not to mention the Ethiopian and Email challenges I had going, are all gone.  It's disenheartening to have to start over with all that. 

[Kyna]

I still have fond memories of some of my sims from when I first installed TS2, before I had even heard of the base game patch.  That neighbourhood is long gone in a BFBVFS, but every now and then I get the impulse to look in on some of those families ... then I remember that I can't.   Just the other day I was on the phone to my daughter (who also plays the Sims, and was visiting from interstate at the time), she was saying 'you remember when ...' and she launched into one of the humorous stories to come out of that neighbourhood.  It was plot so crazy that it made daytime soap plots look sane, but I had a lot of fun playing with it.

The stories, the creative effort, the planning, the building, the decorating, the time - all of these things we put into our sims games.  To many of us "The Sims" is more than just a collection of code and pixels.

I hope you will have better luck with your new Neighbourhoods.

[BeckerCheez]

I'm sorry for your loss.  I've had to abandon ship on Nirvanaville because of memory dumps (Darn you blue screen of death!)  and the fact that my third and fourth generation children were turning out so hideously.  Ack, frustrating.   

[FatedCircle]

Ugh, how frustrating.   I hope you saved your downloads, or at least the ones you use a lot, that would stink if you have to back through downloading everything again.

I no longer have my very first families either, as on my old computer, when I was in a period when I wasn't playing very often I would uninstall the game, to free up some space for the stuff I was playing.  I had some pretty good stories going, including my first ever set of naturally born in game twins...oh well.  It can be fun to start over, but it stinks you had to do it at a time you weren't planning on it, rather than making a conscious choice to start over, just because.  That's hard, but I'm sure you'll have fun rebuilding your neighborhoods, and restarting all those challenges. 

[BlueSoup]

Uh, no I don't think it'll be any fun at to rebuild everything, since I was just starting to really get it all built up in the first place.

But I think this is karma.  All those times I restarted just because....now when I really don't want it, I'm forced too.

About downloads:  When I downloaded everything this last time around, I made a separate downloads folder on the desktop and moved all the zip files there.  I'm reusing some of them, but it's rough going, seeing as there are some I no longer want.   

I'm most pissed off about the E-Mail challenge, but seeing as that was one of the messed up families, it wasn't really feasible to save them.  I know there's some lot doctoring I could have done to try to save them, but it is really too much and all a little daunting. 

[MissDoh]

I'm really sorry for you Blue.  Did you do a back-up?  Even if it is a little old it could be better than starting over.

A little trick for you.  After you build a new house for your Sims move it to the housebin it will keep a copy of it then place it back.  Once you quit the game, do a copy of your lotcatalog folder and put it in a safe place so if anything like that happens again you will have a back-up of all your houses.  I do that for my lotcatalog and downloads folder.

I also copy the complete Sims 2 folder at least once a week for back-up purposes but don't delete old ones unless I am sure I will not use it again.  I did a back-up of the game right after I install it and set it the way I like so I can always start from there if my game go into a BFBVFS.

Hope this can help you in any way.

[Sleepycat]

Uh, no I don't think it'll be any fun at to rebuild everything, since I was just starting to really get it all built up in the first place.

I recently restarted and I was putting off playing because after creating a sim or family, I would need to move them into a house and then build/furnish the house before I could do anything else...So I decided to make a low-cost home/partly furnished and just put a copy of it in the Lot bin and then reuse that house for my "poorer" section of the hood. It's worked out so well that I made another home/partly furnished on a bigger lot (it was hard to keep it under $20,000 on the bigger lot but I managed thankfully) for a "more well to do" section (aka middle class)

It's really working out well, each house has what is absolutely needed so I can move someone in and start playing them right away. I made sure both models would be easily expandable (I hate having to redo an entire house just to add another bedroom) and as my sims can afford it (more like "when I'm in the mood") their house gets bigger and/or more furniture etc... 

Since I'm expanding as needed by family needs, the homes in use are already looking alot different then the original models (I make sure I don't add on the same way for each home) and I'm getting to actually play while rebuilding my n'hood.

Thought I would mention my solution to rebuilding, hope it atleast gives you some ideas for yours