Caryl Gray & Cheryl Miller - Mystery Solved?

[Ancient Sim]

OK, those two elderly Downtown women who are dead but not dead (i.e., they have "I am Dead" tokens, but are not marked as ghosts).  There seemed no purpose to them whatsoever - they can't haunt anybody because they're not dead, but they don't appear downtown because they're in the Default house.  Presumably they could still turn-up as dates from the Matchmaker, but otherwise they seemed to serve no purpose whatsoever and I was totally flummoxed as to what their purpose was.

Messing about in SimPE, I noticed that Cheryl Miller looked exactly the same as the downtownie elder following her in the list.  They definitely ARE the exact same Sim, only the clothes are different.  Cheryl is character 139 in my game and the active one is 140.  Similarly, Caryl Gray (character 115) looks to me as if she is an elder version of the downtownie teen preceeding her in the game (character 114).

I think this is another Maxis cock-up.  Looks as if they've created these characters twice for some unknown reason, rather like the Skip/Darleen/Michael situation with the extra thumbnails.  Quite why, is anyone's guess.  Personally, I'd suggest either making these women playable (you could have identical twins in the case of the two that are the same, should you for any weird reason want identical twin elders) or deleting their files altogether.  Personally, I will be doing the latter, because I can't see that they serve any purpose whatsoever other than to add two totally unnecessary character files to the neighbourhood.  I certainly don't think there's any 'mystery' about them, as some people have suggested (mainly on the BBS, needless to say).

[ZephyrZodiac]

Thanks Ancient - I never even noticed them, but I'll definitely keep my eyes open in future!

[C.S.]

Good to know I won't be missing anything then, I deleted both .

[Dea]

It just made me mad bc I have like 8 Caryl's in my game...I will be deleting them

[ZephyrZodiac]

How on earth did you get 8?

[Dea]

4 elders, 2 adults, and two teens...The 3 elders are downtownies one is a repairwoman, one adult is a maid the other is a downtownie and the teens are downtownies.  And Im just sick of seeing that name...And thats just one neighborhood...And I guess the name picker or whatever you want to call it likes that name...Couldnt it at least randomize the  name though...maybe I wont delete them all though just the ones that are useless...Ill rename the others

[Paperbladder]

They've actually made clones of sims for the Dormies, I've seen 3 sims that are exactly the same face and clothing.  This is different though.  Maxis puts all sorts of artefacts in their games and game files such as the Family want and the Bella in the fireplace.  I nuked my neighborhood and installed notownieregen so I probably won't encounter these two sims, but it's nothing beyond Maxis just shoving some data in there.  However, you might be able to find some way to bring those townies back if you wanted them as twins or something.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, if they haven't met anyone yet, then you could delete them all and let the game generate replacements - maybe you'll get lucky and get different names and faces.

[vilia]

4 elders, 2 adults, and two teens...The 3 elders are downtownies one is a repairwoman, one adult is a maid the other is a downtownie and the teens are downtownies.  And Im just sick of seeing that name...And thats just one neighborhood...And I guess the name picker or whatever you want to call it likes that name...Couldnt it at least randomize the  name though...maybe I wont delete them all though just the ones that are useless...Ill rename the others

I was thinking of a cool story you could create - attack of the killer Caryls.  You could turn them into the seven (plus one) horsemen of the apocalypse and spread pestilence and misery throughout your neighbourhood hehehe.  On the otherhand you could just rename them...

EDIT: aaaaahhhhhh, I just checked my neighbourhood out in Sims2DB and I have not one (and seriously that was bad enough) but two Goopys [shudders and reaches for my cow plant named Bertha]

[Regina]

4 elders, 2 adults, and two teens...The 3 elders are downtownies one is a repairwoman, one adult is a maid the other is a downtownie and the teens are downtownies.  And Im just sick of seeing that name...And thats just one neighborhood...And I guess the name picker or whatever you want to call it likes that name...Couldnt it at least randomize the  name though...maybe I wont delete them all though just the ones that are useless...Ill rename the others

Mayhaps you could just change their names in SimPE?  I get duplicate names all the time and that's how what I do.  I also use Merola's multi-painting to change names of service worker and/or townie sims that move in with my other sims.

[ZephyrZodiac]

The trouble with just changing their names is they'd all still look alike, and have identical DNA.  Personally, I'd remove them and let the game generate replacements for the NPCs.

[Regina]

The trouble with just changing their names is they'd all still look alike, and have identical DNA.  Personally, I'd remove them and let the game generate replacements for the NPCs.

Okey-doke!  I was thinking perhaps this was one of those cases of just too many sims generated with one name--annoying at best. LOL  I wasn't scoring real high on reading comprehension last night.

[Dea]

Reviving a dead thread.  After I installed OFB Caryl and Cheryl respawned, but thats not all.  Most of the characters that came with OFBare messed up.  Most of them have one or more of the following: the wrong gender, no personality, no aspiration, no interests, 0 days remaaining, wrong age.  If Maxis keeps this up it will be a bad, bad thing.