Myths, Urban Legends, And Apocrypha Of TS2 Explored And Exploded

[RainbowTigress]

Wow, you'd think Maxis could have warned you. 

[Orikes]

I don't think I've ever had a limo in a house where a child would have been left alone.

I had it happen once. With work, if there's no nanny or teenager, the parent simply won't go to work and leave the kid at home alone. With the wedding, they automatically rush off to the limo, no matter who's left behind. I had a single mom marry a guy and they left her kid at home. I quickly had the kid call the Nanny and life was okay.

[Jelenedra]

I think that since Cass wasn't the mother she didn't get the warning about not going.

I know that a teenage sibling can leave their toddler sibs at home without the dialogue if their parents aren't home.

[Dark Trepie]

There is another Caliente scenario.

If you move in Mortimer as soon as he walks by the lot (by marrying or just moving him in), you get a message saying something like "Three's Company! It's time for Nina to find her own place."

Now that's one I've never seen.  I always make Mortimer throw the wedding party and have Dina move into the Goth house.

All the senarios I can list off the top of my head in the three Maxian hoods.

Pleasantview:

-Lothario:  Hire maid.  Woohoo Nina.
-Caliente:  Get engaged to Mortimer.  Get robbed.
-Dreamer:  Paint
-Broke:  Teach Beau to walk
-Pleasant:  Get fired or demoted.  Catch Daniel cheating.
-Goth:  Get left at the alter

Strangetown:

-Spectre:  Retire from job
-Curioius:  Alien abuction and pregnancy
-Smith:  Birthday party
-Grunt:  Get teen job
-Beaker:  Get promotion

Veronaville:

-Summerdream:  First kiss.  Succesful wedding
-Monty:  Invite Jullete over to make out.  Which propts Tybalt to come over as well and get into a fight with Mercutio.
-Capp:  None.  (At least none that have pop-up messages.  Jullete is wanting to go steady with Romeo though.  And he just happens to be there)

[Dea]

I have noticed lately that the scenarios for Strangetown and Veronaville are broken...When I reinstall I can play the Pleasantview scenarios but Strangetown and Veronaville just dont happen...I get no pop ups on any lot so of course Ill still send Vidcund up to get abducted but he doesnt...There is no party at the Summerdreams and no one wants to retire/get a job/get a promotion...blah blah....I think it started with Nightlife.

Strangetown and Veronaville are definitely buggy in many ways...

[Jelenedra]

I believe NL broke the scenarios.

[Diala]

I certainly don't mind the scenarios being broken. It just means that I can start altering the families in my own way quicker. I didn't really play the preset neighborhoods until recently, when I checked out what I think was the Dreamer house (the family with all the bills, originally) and found that there were no bills anywhere, even though the popup said something about them.

I also revived Skip Broke, simply for amusement's sake. Is that a bad thing? I don't really care about Pleasantview, but I know it will affect the outcome of the baby.

[RainbowTigress]

I don't think it's a bad thing.  I resurrected Skip Broke in my own game, as well as Michael Bachelor and Bella Goth.  As long as you do it properly, it should be fine.

[MxxPwr]

I have a superstition/myth that I need either confirmed or exploded please.

Short question first. Does having a total number of living and dead Sims above 8 on a residential lot have the potential to damage the lot? It's not so much a matter of; can you have more than 8 living and dead total on a residential lot (I know you can), but should you? Is it harmful to the lot?

Long story second. I HATE elder Sims. So much so, that when I make a 'hood that I plan to play for a few generations, I make a resthome/cemetary residential lot.

How I do it is:
Sims eventually age transition into elders. I move the elders out of their family homes (because I hate them) and move them onto the resthome/cemetary lot (usually named 'The Hills'; usually manned by one of the elders) and meditate them to death or just outright kill them.

My superstition has been:
When the lot reaches close to 8 total; like say 7 tombstones and 1 elder left, that elder gets a reprieve and gets to live on the lot... forever. Then, I start a second resthome/cemetary lot next door named 'The Hills Annex' with a new elder and continue on.

But, do I really need to do this? Can I just buy a huge lot and stuff as many tombstones on the lot as possible? The reason I ask is that I really don't trust Maxis code, and it sure seems like there are still character files associated with the lot alive or dead. So, I dunno.

Thanks

[dizzy]

It will limit the number of random visitors you can get, but otherwise I don't see the big deal. I've had lots that had dozens of playable sims and it worked just fine (albeit a bit slow).

[Jelenedra]

You could always do the whole move tombstones to a cemetary thing and keep shoving elders in the lot.

[Avalikia]

The only "problems" I've had on lots with more than eight sims is the ugliness of the family's loading picture (purely cosmetic) and the choppiness of my game as my pathetic computer tries to process all of them at the same time (not too big of a deal if I don't go overboard).  I'd say that, due to the frequency of people using mods that allow more than 8 sims and not having anything more serious happen, it's probably not going to break anything if you do it.  Then again, if it can cause subtle, lingering problems that get worse over time until your game explodes (like downloading families in lots from the exchange), then I wouldn't know.  (Then again, it seems as if simply playing the game normally can cause subtle, lingering problems that get worse over time until your game explodes.)

[Soylent Sim]

What Avalikia said.

The 8 sims per lot thing is purely to keep players from bloating their lots with sims and then coming to whine about it when their game slows to a crawl/goes asplodey.  There are even rumors that Maxis is working on a cheat to let players break the 8 sim cap in an official version of the game.  So just the grave markers alone won't do much of anything to your game.  Now, what multiple grave markers might mean is multiple ghosts active on your lot, and that will cause things to slow down.  But given that it'll take a lot of ghosts to have a noticable effect, and that you don't have any reason to care about these sims anyways, feel free to go wild.

[jsalemi]

I think the game caps the number of active ghosts anyway (though I could be wrong).  I usually have a 'haunted dorm' (thanks to 'nouniprotect'), and have had as many as 8 graves on the lot, and have never seen more than 2 or 3 ghosts active at the same time.

[adriennelisa]

Long story second. I HATE elder Sims. ...I meditate them to death or just outright kill them.

I hate them too.  What other ways are there to kill off elders (especially if they have a lot of mechanical points and I can't fry them)?

[Fish Dude]

Twojeff's has an adult/elder hack which makes the adult life longer and the elder life shorter.

Or just lock them in a doorless room, put about 3 beds, about 5 fire jets and turn them all on. Eww...crispy, rinkly, old, skin.

[Jelenedra]

Rugs and wicker chairs in front of a fire place. Indoor firecrackers. Whoo!

[J. M. Pescado]

Your ageist attitudes merely perpetuate the problem, you know.

[Jelenedra]

I actually never let my sims age to elder. The ONE time I had elders in my game was solely for the purpose of allowing my CAS to have recessive genes. But they were in Strangeville and all of the premade houses there suck so I could never stand playing them. And I wasn't going to build a house big enough for the entire family if they were just there for the genes and the insurance money.

[MxxPwr]

Long story second. I HATE elder Sims. ...I meditate them to death or just outright kill them.

I hate them too.  What other ways are there to kill off elders (especially if they have a lot of mechanical points and I can't fry them)?

Well, since the newer Elders are now College Grads, I had one wait to get to the old folks home before getting the job that gives up a Cowplant. Now, I Cowplant most of them.

[Avalikia]

I'm usually patient enough to let them die of old age.  They're often useful in assisting with their grand-spawn, can provide some additional income, and I like to have them spend their last days making friends with poor people so everyone gets rich when they die.

[miros]

MYTH: Feeding a toddler smart milk results in him learning faster when he becomes a child than a toddler who is not fed smart milk.
STATUS: PARTIALLY TRUE. A toddler who receives smart milk can, in some circumstances, have his skill-boost-rate attribute "stuck" similar to the fashion of a stuck emitter, or perhaps the snooty-headmaster-departure. A freshly nuked toddler may also carry over his effect briefly into childhood. However, this represents a bug and does not occur consistently. Some children may stick and become "smart" for their entire childhood, others may not. No pattern has yet been discerned.

I suspect Maxis helpfully "fixed" this one in pets... I fed one toddler a whole machine full of Smart Milk and none of it stuck!  Although that is a fairly probable outcome, none of my kids who were stuck before installing Pets are currently stuck either.

[twojeffs]

The hood reset caused by the EP install will cause all 'stuck' sims to 'unstick'. This has always happened. Now whether they really fixed the 'bug' and no new toddlers will 'stick' is another story.

[cwykes]

I don't think it's a bad thing.  I resurrected Skip Broke in my own game, as well as Michael Bachelor and Bella Goth.  As long as you do it properly, it should be fine.

As I remember there are two character files for Michael Bachelor and one is broken.  The details escape me (try the thread about fixing strangetown genetics), but I think you risk resurrecting a guy with relationships that don't match what you expect, no genetics or some other problem  Hence "as long as you do it propperly" for any maxis character.


So what's wrong with elders?  My sims don't age to elder except by accident thanks to elixir of life, but I've got a few and I've also deliberately created dozens of elder sims and had a lot of fun with them.  Maybe it's that I like a challenge.  A CAS made elder or family of elders is harder to play because they have no skills, can't get a real job, have to manage on a very low income, have diffictult/impossible LTWs and suffer from weak bladders.  However they have plenty of time at home.  Grandparents are excellent for encouraging kids - Play the grandparents house, invite the kids over, lecture them till they behave better and send them home.  Sound familiar?   I use elders as employees in shops now and they work out pretty well.   They ought to be gardening really.  I made an elderly romance sim, who is cutting a swathe through the hood - I think of him as early stages alzheimers - my mother in law avoids these guys on saga holidays! Sound familiar?  Two elderly sisters living alone - one likes parties, the other fears them... sound familiar?  They probably need a cat or two.  I have a household of 7 elders and one adult made in CAS - all brothers with every aspiration represented and very different personalities.  Very hard to manage with 20k starting money.   

[RainbowTigress]

I tried using Macro > Encourage with some grandparents and their grandchildren, but it never seemed to have any effect.  I checked on the children's personality points by making them selectable, and it never made a difference even if I let them go at it for several hours.  If leave the children selectable, instead of just long enough to see their personality points, the game thinks they are part of the household, and they do get the points for it, but then you risk the school bus coming for them at their grandparents house.  I don't know what kind of problems that would cause.