New Patches for OFB and FFS

[J. M. Pescado]

"The One" effect?  I'm not familiar with that...

The One is where, due to lazy coding practices and cutting corners, sims and objects of a given class acquire undue significance over their peers. An example of "The One" is "The One Desk", where all sim children must drop their homework around on a given lot. It doesn't matter if there are a half-dozen other empty desks, all of which are closer. The One Desk rules them all. The Slapper is another example of The One.

Interesting, because I have the exact opposite experience with them.  Their business is up to level 7 (and close to , Lisa has a job and is doing quite well, and helps out in the store when she's not working.  Tessa is skilling away, and about a day away from transitioning to teen.

Except for the minor problem that it takes them 3 hours to get anywhere, and they're constantly out of energy, so the net effect is that it takes them a minimum of twice as long, on average 5 times as long, to do anything as one of my regular sims. Thus, they're doing poorly. The cumulative effect of being an anemic sluggard is counterproductive and annoys me greatly. I despise laziness.

[kutto]

I somewhat despise activity! Sims only need about 4 or 5. Those others points are wasted. Most of mine are very outgoing or very playful. Activity is only good for those in a career where body is essential.

[RainbowTigress]

Maxis sims are at such a disadvantage, even more so than adult sims you would create in CAS.  I use TJ's college adjuster to randomize skills, so they get a random amount of skills that I feel they might have acquired already by the time they were adults.  Of course, they would have much more if I had been playing them from birth, but at least they don't start out with no skills and it doesn't feel like cheating so much because I didn't decide which skills and how much.  You can select max skills up to 5 if you don't want them to have too much or max out any certain skill.  I also adjust their Active level to at least 6 so they can run, because I can't stand to see them drag around like molasses.  If they were my sims, they would have been encouraged to be active as children, so I think it's only fair.  I don't like to kill sims over stuff like that which can be easily fixed.

[J. M. Pescado]

I somewhat despise activity! Sims only need about 4 or 5. Those others points are wasted. Most of mine are very outgoing or very playful. Activity is only good for those in a career where body is essential.

You NEED at least 6. Otherwise the sim can't move! A sim without 6 active is like a one-legged sim, hobbling from place to place at a furlong per fortnight. And constantly out of energy. There's no real benefit to NOT being active at all!

[Nova]

Activity is only good for those in a career where body is essential.

Unless you like your sim to have the 'run here' option...which is great for a home businesss.

[jsalemi]

I don't like to kill sims over stuff like that which can be easily fixed.

I don't like to kill CAS or born-in-game sims for stuff that can be fixed.  I have no such reserveration with Maxis sims that I have no investment in, and can't see gaining one.

[RainbowTigress]

I try to avoid having "dead weight" in my neighborhood files as much as possible. 

[blubug]

What problems have you had with this new patch(s) AFTER you got it installed? Any biggies?

Some folks say the moveobjects cheat ISN'T fixed...?

The moveobjects fix (the patch should have fixed it, right?) doesn't work for me. I added my whole Sims2folder back in after I patched, because I had to reinstall from scratch. Maybe this is the problem I'm gonna make the game generate a new sims2 folder and try again tomorrow.

[BlueSoup]

It worked for me no problem...

Are you sure you don't have anything conflicting with it?

[blubug]

Nope, I just tried it in  a newly generated sims2 folder's Clean Pleasantville. No hacks, no downloads. Funny though, I could've sworn I placed a car on the street yesterday... Hmm. (I can pick up the mailbox, but can't place it back where it was) Maybe I'll put back windkeeper's hack for locked tiles and try again tomorrow.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, I've been able to move mailboxes when they were in a daft place - once loaded a new empty lot and the mailbox was on the wrong wide of the road, so I moved it back where it should be.  However, if you have moveobjects off, you can't do it.

[MutantBunny]

I read someplace that if youi had the hack to make the cheat work again that it is disabling the Maxis fix and then moveobjects won'yt work. Did you have it and have you taken it out?

[ZephyrZodiac]

I think blubug said it was a clean neighbourhood.

[blubug]

I didn't have it before but I had the version of numenor's objects on custom shelves (with that fix included). I took my whole game folder out, put it in another directory. Uninstalled everything, installed everything, patches too, then put my game folder back in (because I forgot to do that before I patched, I thought it was the problem).

So just now, I made the game regenerate a Sims 2 folder, put no hacks in (not even CEP), ran the game, entered a lot in pleasantville, entered the cheat, picked up the mailbox, but wasn't able to put it back in place. I haven't modified any of the core game files (except for an added line in the modular stairs text). So vanilla game, cheat works, but I can't place anything on the road or by the road. (But I can recolor the sidewalk)

Perhaps yesterday I placed that car on the sidewalk, never paid much attention.

[ZephyrZodiac]

It does seem odd, and although I can't see how an added line in the modular stairs could cause it, it might be worth changing it back to the original.

Stupid question, but does moveobjects work for items within the lot?

[blubug]

Yes, it does, it works fine. Anyways, I'm off to bed now but put my backups in for the scripts (don2t think that has anything to do with it) if nothing works, I'll do a reinstall and check this feature immediately. Man, this is turning into Sims1 when I had to reinstall almost every week. I want to place stuff on the side of the road. Period.
Thanks for your suggestions guys

[ZephyrZodiac]

One suggestion comes to mind - when you get a copy of the game that works, copy the program files to another location, then if anything goes wrong again, all you need to do is put those files in instead of the used ones.  As long as you have registry entries for the game, you can do this - worked in sim1 too.

[blubug]

Like in the Program files/EA Games folder? I can back that up too? If that's true, I'll back all those up for sure next time I reinstall

[ZephyrZodiac]

Yes, if you have a copy you can overwrite the original if it starts to act up - because the registry entry is already there.  But if you uninstall, the registry entry goes too, and then you would have to do a complete reinstall.

And make sure that you make your objects.package file readonly after you reinstall and install the patch.

[blubug]

Oh, okay. I'll be back to let you know if the reinstall worked. One last question: when I get the new expansion, or if I have a new patch, I will have to make the objects.package non-read only (writable) again before I install them, right? (for future muck-ups)

[ZephyrZodiac]

Yes, the new install needs to be able to access it, but then afterwards you can make it read only again, plus, of course, the new one.

[RainbowTigress]

Actually, each expansion comes with a new objects.package that it installs in the new directory for the new EP, and according to Pescado, it never accesses the old ones again.  So you have to go into the directory for the newest EP and make that objects.package read-only.

[Ellatrue]

Why do we need to make it readonly? I thought it was only neccessary for the vampire problems that were fixed in the nightlife patch?

[RainbowTigress]

There were problems with the remote control car as well.  I don't know if that's been fixed, but I avoid using the RC car.  Maxoid Tom said it wouldn't hurt to make your objects.package file read-only, and that would help prevent it getting corrupted, as the game should never make changes to that file in normal gameplay.

[ZephyrZodiac]

I wasn't thinking!  It's when you patch you need to make it writeable again!