Mass Amnesia Bug

[Ancient Sim]

Last night one of my Sims had a Dream Date with one of the Uni professors.  I was a little puzzled when he sprang-up the want to have his first woo-hoo with her, as I knew for a fact he'd been woo-hooing all over campus for years. 

To cut a long story short, as soon as an NPC or townie comes into play in the game, their memories are wiped totally clean.  All they have is the stupid Mystery Sim stuff and "Went to College".  They have no recollection whatsoever of meeting all their friends or anything.  I am LIVID.  I am going to put the amnesia hack back in NOW and if it messes up the game, so be it.  I refuse to let this happen to anymore Sims.  It's no wonder they are all wandering around looking lost, they've got nothing to talk about!

Has anyone else noticed this?  I've only just been able to get SimPE to work for the memories in Pleasantview so didn't realise the extent of it until now.  Luckily I have a back-up from before I installed, but it's going to take AGES to sort it all out.  If this is intentional, it's the most stupid thing I've come across.  It's bad enough doing it with NPC's, but townies?  They are part of the neighbourhood and share the lives of the Sims living there.  For them to lose all their memories is ludicrous, especially as in many cases they've had personal relationships with these Sims.

Edit: Unfortunately, I DON'T have a back-up.  Since installing the latest SimPE, my back-up folder seems to have disappeared.  So now I am going to have to play the guessing game.  No wonder Prof. Stephan keeps ringing my Sim up wanting more dates, he can't remember any of the other women he is supposed to be in love with.  If I find out this was deliberate, I am going to ... grrrrrrrrrrr ... turn somebody into a vampire???

[MistMeUK]

i dont think its just the memories, i think its the wants and fears bit in general.

one of my sims bought a phone in the uni pack, now when nightlife is installed she gets the "buy Mobile" want. when she already has one.

[J. M. Pescado]

This falls into "it's not a bug, it's a feature". NPC Amnesia is actually a preprogrammed part of the game made to intentionally mindwipe NPCs and townies on move-in. This dubious feature was disabled by one of our hacks, but created an issue where dormies that got moved into a house not part of Uni would simply effectively drop out instead of getting an autograduate.

It is not presently known whether this hack will function under NL.

[gali]

There is only one you have to turn into Vampire, but he already declared that he already is, and playing "Space Conquere"... - how Awesome of him....

*Sigh*

[J. M. Pescado]

Silly Gali. The game isn't due to arrive for another 6-8 weeks. Be patient.

[Ancient Sim]

This falls into "it's not a bug, it's a feature". NPC Amnesia is actually a preprogrammed part of the game made to intentionally mindwipe NPCs and townies on move-in.

This isn't townies & NCP's who are moving in JM, it's ALL townies & NCP's as soon as they 'kick-in' to Nightlife.  In other words, once they interact with a Sim I am controlling (not ones they interact with on downtown lots in the background) they appear to instantly lose their memories.  Having looked at a few more in SimPE, it's obvious this was intentional.  Lucy Hanby the maid, for instance, who I walled-off in someone's garden with her precious fishtank, had a small collection of memories which included passing out and wetting herself.  The last one was "I Am Dead".  Now she 4 invisible memories (the third being the death memory), followed by the usual crap about her activities with the non-existent Mystery Sim and ending with "Went to College".  She never had a college memory before, none of the original NCP's and townies did but now they do.

OK, maybe Maxis feel that periodically these characters need a memory wipe to avoid too many memories building-up, but (a) they don't actually have all that many personal memories, most are invisible 3rd party memories, so why not just erase those? and (b) if they are so concerned about memories, why all the A+, Dean's List & Family Reunion spam?  We should have the choice as to whether or not the non-playable characters retain or lose their memories, especially bearing in mind that some of them may be part of intricate storylines which can be ruined by their memories being wiped. 

I am going to have to kill-off the characters that have already lost their memories because I refuse to have them in the game without them.  Those that haven't I will try moving into various households and saving, then make them into townies again with Inge's bush when I return to the game.  If that doesn't work, it will have to be a laborious memory-replacing job for all of them.  And all I wanted to do was play the new expansion.  Sigh.

Incidentally, why the "Foods Eaten" memory, does anyone know?  My 'wiped' townies have more of these than anything else now - a whole list of them, 7 or 8 one after the other.  I know for a fact that they've not actually eaten these meals - even townie kids have them and nobody has had them round for a meal since NL was put in.

[J. M. Pescado]

My wild speculative theory is that those food tokens involve sims and their favorite foods, and that the constant mindwiping is done to prevent clogs of memories from the longdead. Besides, you'd realistically never notice because the sims and townies are mindwiped again on move-in, unless you tried to really dig for it, like we tend to do.

[Motoki]

they don't actually have all that many personal memories

LOL My nannies have, or rather had, lots of them. Pissing themselves, pissing themselves at a party, passing out, starting a fire, etc.

Anyhow, given that at least one fight tends to breakout every time I got to a lot, I suspect the townies and npcs will start getting a lot of memories.

I agree your points that the mindwipes on installing an add-on and moving in are annoying, as are all the spammy A+ and family reunion wants.

[Ancient Sim]

I tested this out last night.  I teleported in a Professor and made them selectable with pause on - their original memories were still intact.  The second I unpaused, there was a 'click' and all the memories instantly disappeared and were replaced with the Mystery Sim crap.  What am I going to do without the amnesia fix, as it looks as if it isn't going to work and it isn't being replaced.  I couldn't care less about the graduation problem with it because I always graduate mine anyway.  PLEASE can we have an updated version for those of us who are happy to use it as it is?  PRETTY PLEASE???

[Oddysey]

My wild speculative theory is that those food tokens involve sims and their favorite foods, and that the constant mindwiping is done to prevent clogs of memories from the longdead. Besides, you'd realistically never notice because the sims and townies are mindwiped again on move-in, unless you tried to really dig for it, like we tend to do.

Many of those tokens do seem to have something to do with food. First time they cooked a food, first time they ate a food. I'd guess that the game doesn't give a sim a want to eat a food until they've already eaten it, except maybe cereal or ham sandwiches. That way you don't get sims randomly wanting to eat Lobster Thermidore when they're two days out of CAS and have no skills.

Honestly, I rather like the idea of townies having memories of five or six generations of sims. Make for some interestingly bizarre conversations. Be a bit cumbersome, though.

[Andygal]

I moved a teen townie to college with one of my sims, and then I found out that he had a memory of getting his first kiss with my sim's MOTHER. I had forgotten that she got her first kiss with him. That was a bit *odd* to say the least. And icky.

[vecki]

I moved a teen townie to college with one of my sims, and then I found out that he had a memory of getting his first kiss with my sim's MOTHER. I had forgotten that she got her first kiss with him. That was a bit *odd* to say the least. And icky.

That sort of situation is why I'm kinda happy they do get amnesia.

[Kitiara]

Exactly. The fact that townies do not age and all generations of a family can be friends (or more) with the same ones over and over is the one fact in support of the amnesia. Can you imagine getting married only to discover that your new husband had an affair with your great-grandmother and was the first kiss of your uncle?

[Ancient Sim]

Exactly. The fact that townies do not age and all generations of a family can be friends (or more) with the same ones over and over is the one fact in support of the amnesia. Can you imagine getting married only to discover that your new husband had an affair with your great-grandmother and was the first kiss of your uncle?

While I can appreciate that point, I still think it's wrong to do this arbitrarily.  It also makes no sense to remove memories pertaining to people who are still alive, even more so if they're still in the same age-group as the townie.  The worst part is that the dormies have been affected and now have no recollection of meeting people still in the dorm with them!  That's ridiculous.  I haven't been back on campus since, I just don't want to.  I had one dormie nicely building-up a relationship with one of my students and all that will be gone.  Instead of his first kiss being with her, it's now been with Mystery Sim, so I've all that to alter back now.  Everything else apart, I strongly resent all the work this entails when I'd rather be playing the new expansion, but I can't leave it like this.  It just doesn't seem right to me.  Makes me think of brainwashing religions and stuff like that.  Creepy, don't like it.

[dizzy]

Memories really ought to age and fade over time. That would solve all these problems.

[Kitiara]

I get your point, and I agree. But, as buggy and problematic as memories already are, do we really want Maxis/Ea to try to do something as complicated and sophisticated as that? It would be great, but I think realistically that while mass amnesia  is not better it is more pragmatic and  practical.  I guess I just have given up.



-edited for clarity-

[Ancient Sim]

I dont know if this will help, but Pinhead at MTS2 has updated his move_in_all hack for NL. You get the option to set the standard CAS memory for the Sim you are moving in or retain their memories. He also has a "no friendship required" version for NL.

http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=90810

It would have helped ENORMOUSLY if I'd known about it before I installed the expansion, but the game has very cleverly made sure that the majority of townies and dormies have been invited to various group outings so they could be memory-wiped.  I don't think I have many left now that still have their original memories, but those that have will be moved-in and out as soon as I get into the game! 

Thanks very much for this, at least I can use it in the future even if it isn't going to be of much help now and it will certainly help if any townies or NPC's marry-in or whatever.