Submit Issues about Nightlife

[gynarchy]

I had this happen in Uni often you could not paint over it but you can erase it like all Terainpaintings.

I feel like an idiot, I had no idea you could remove terrain paints. Thanks for telling me, maybe I can salvage a few of the lots I downloaded.

[miclsimmer]

I haven't been able to erase that blue...that was left when I put NL on.  I thought I had gotten rid of ALL TPs and their Lots...

MaxoidTom terrain paints or ground covers have been a problem since Homecrafter was released and people started using them.

Very simple to replicate...make some , download some, make some lots , play with them  delete them and have some FUN.
Download this file it only contains 4 terrain paints http://thesims2.ea.com/stream.php?asset_type=lot&asset_id=247370 (accident that it is the same file as pics above)
At one time I had 147terrain paints  because of them all being loaded into package files for upload/ download.  put one in a lot  they all get packaged.

Edit: I just put the above file in my game.  Running NL. Deleted Deepwater.package  and to my suprise it did not crash when entering lot.  However, it did crash the packaging process.
Edit: http://thesims2.ea.com/stream.php?asset_type=lot&asset_id=240431 is an example of how many terrain paints can come with a lot.  No warning sign for them.
Put this in a game then make another lot-  paint a small area with one terrain paint ....packagethe new lot  to file and then see how many TPs get attached in the package. No way am I gonna do it.....been there done that.

[LynnMar]

My photos are disappearing and I have read that others have had the same problem,

 I Know that they are not put into the neighborhood, storytelling like in UNI but in the regular storytelling folder in mydocs/sims2/storytelling. 

 I have a few that show up but most of the pictures I take while on a downtown lot are not  showing up in any of my folders, they just simply disappear.     thanks

[HRH Posie]

I've recently discovered that children born from abduction after installing Nightlife no longer have Pollination Technician listed as their father.  Before I go ahead and fill out the Nightlife form could I check to see if this is a design issue please?  I created a thread here and it would seem I am not alone.

[MaxoidTom]

My photos are disappearing and I have read that others have had the same problem,

 I Know that they are not put into the neighborhood, storytelling like in UNI but in the regular storytelling folder in mydocs/sims2/storytelling. 

 I have a few that show up but most of the pictures I take while on a downtown lot are not  showing up in any of my folders, they just simply disappear.     thanks

All the pictures should show up under the specific neighborhoods now (just like in Uni).  The My Docs\...\The Sims 2\Storytelling folder is used for temporary storage.

[MaxoidTom]

I've recently discovered that children born from abduction after installing Nightlife no longer have Pollination Technician listed as their father.  Before I go ahead and fill out the Nightlife form could I check to see if this is a design issue please?  I created a thread here and it would seem I am not alone.

I have not seen this issue--please submit a bug using the form.

[Zoltan]

Tom, I have 2 stories in my sim house, the phone rang and Bill answered it on the 1st floor,,,the person was wanting to speak with Jane, who was on the second floor.  Bill called out to Jane she had a phone call: Jane walked right past the maxis desktop phone on the second floor to answer the maxis desktop phone (that Bill had originally answered on) on the first floor. 

whats the deal on that?

[MaxoidTom]

Tom, I have 2 stories in my sim house, the phone rang and Bill answered it on the 1st floor,,,the person was wanting to speak with Jane, who was on the second floor.  Bill called out to Jane she had a phone call: Jane walked right past the maxis desktop phone on the second floor to answer the maxis desktop phone (that Bill had originally answered on) on the first floor. 

whats the deal on that?

Someone didn't code that ability into the game.

[Karen]

Maybe this is a dumb question, but how do I find the sound and drivers information this form asks for? It won't let me submit the form without but I can't find it, either.

Jen

Try the EAsy Info tool that comes with the game. 
Start->Programs->EA Games->The Sims 2 Nightlife->EAsy Info

The driver information is listed there.

Hope this helps.
Karen

[Inge]

Tom, I have 2 stories in my sim house, the phone rang and Bill answered it on the 1st floor,,,the person was wanting to speak with Jane, who was on the second floor.  Bill called out to Jane she had a phone call: Jane walked right past the maxis desktop phone on the second floor to answer the maxis desktop phone (that Bill had originally answered on) on the first floor. 

whats the deal on that?

Someone didn't code that ability into the game.

And anyway, they're *sims*!  That's the very sort of thing they do that makes them amusing for me to play with    I nearly went off the game with the original Sims 2, because they didn't seem to need me, they were so damned sensible about everything.   I thought why am I sitting here watching these people go about their lives?   At least with Nightlife they have become completely stupid and out of order again.

[witch]

MaxoidTom terrain paints or ground covers have been a problem since Homecrafter was released and people started using them.

Ah, so that was the trigger. I entered a bug report last night but did not have that info. I used the link provided to the TSR explanation by cyclonesue in the bug report form as it described everything clearly. I also quoted some of your words from earlier in this thread - about how to replicate this fault. Hope you don't mind. You seem to have extra info available, why don't you submit a bug report also, maybe that will help make the case that this is a real buggy issue.

At one time I had 147terrain paints  because of them all being loaded into package files for upload/ download.  put one in a lot  they all get packaged.

Yup, I had a gazillion of the buggers too. I have since deleted all terrain paints and use none whatsoever.

No way am I gonna do it.....been there done that.

Endlessly, till I worked out it was terrain paints.

[LynnMar]

yesterday some lady called one of sims up to meet her downtown and he got in the cab and left but when he got downtown the  live mode was greyed out,

 so I had to go back to the neighborhood without saving and  there he was getting out of the cab   

[miclsimmer]

Has the Maxoid retreated back into the Maxis/EA bunker? Perhaps the Vamp biting Mrs. C ment his services were badly needed at home.

[Inge]

Perhaps he's left this site out of loyalty to the users of his own BBS who have been shamelessly slandered here?  I think it's really ugly, and if saying that loses me friends I'll have to cope with it.

[nectere]

yesterday some lady called one of sims up to meet her downtown and he got in the cab and left but when he got downtown the  live mode was greyed out,

 so I had to go back to the neighborhood without saving and  there he was getting out of the cab   

This is a reoccuring issue with a particular sim I am having, except not only does the live button grey out, the sim in question disappears all together. This is happening repeatedly, at Uni, but only with this one sim in particular. (I think - since he is the only playable sim at Uni right now) I have tried moving him out of his house, back in, and then onto a brand new lot. Finally I put him in a dorm until I can figure out how to unfubar him. He seems to disappear whenever an NPC arrives on lot, whether it be the maid or that gypsy lady. It didnt always happen, in fact I played him until the last of his Junior year bug free which leads into the next oddity...

I think it all started when he bought some love potion, and then requested a blind date (although it wasnt his first). He immediately drank the potion and then proceeded on his own (at home) with a tirade of questions to the blind date etc. I was looking at the cue of icons that popped up for him to initiate and about half of them were "bleh" and "be blehed". What the heck is that about? I know one of his contacts (and apparently a Uni sim) somehow got turned into a vampire (through no effort on my part) but I am not sure how that would effect my sim who has not even had contact with the vampire since the guy apparently turned into one when I wasnt looking. Anyway, suddenly the live button grayed out and he disappeared. The gardener, the maid and the gypsy plus blind date where all on the lot, I think there was also a passerby and the mailman as well. I exited and re-entered the lot, he disappeared again immediately. This time I deleted all the characters on the lot and re-entered, when I got back in the maid was in a driving position on the steps of his house, without a vehicle, so I deleted her and everyone else again. I re-entered and the gypsy lady and the blind date was gone, as was everyone else and I was able to play him again, for a while. The next day about the time the maid arrived he went mia again. So I moved him thinking a portal was broken or something. It didnt help, he disappeared when the gyspy showed up again to "welcome" him. I moved him out of that house and into a dorm, I havent played him since.

I wonder if the entire Uni neighborhood got fubared? So do I have to make a new Uni now? Seeing as how I cannot delete the current one else loose a bunch of memories or something.

I think I finally broke my game, although I broke it where I wasnt expecting it to break, in a Uni hood.

I dont know if this is just a Uni problem, if vampires are not supposed to be at uni or if the gypsy lady somehow got turned into a vampire but doesnt have the skin or what the heck is going on. I suspect my effected sim (one of the few townies with good genes incidently) will soon meet a tragic demise...

[Marvin Kosh]

You can turn on "testingCheatsEnabled" and error dialogs will come up.  As well, error dumps will be put in the Logs directory under My Docs.  An OETreeDelete.xls file will also be generated, listing what objects were deleted, where, and why.

I was suggesting a sort of middle-ground between a game-halting error message and not showing errors at all.  It'll still reset the interaction and allow play to continue, but an alert message about the error will appear.  That way, if the user doesn't immediately notice that something has gone wrong (perhaps, because they aren't in a position to see it) they will still know about it.

Essentially what I'm saying is that I want the error-awareness of the debug mode, without needing to turn on everything and the kitchen sink

[nectere]

Perhaps he's left this site out of loyalty to the users of his own BBS who have been shamelessly slandered here?  I think it's really ugly, and if saying that loses me friends I'll have to cope with it.

I find the concept of that forum rather ironic.

[sanmonroe]

Perhaps he's left this site out of loyalty to the users of his own BBS who have been shamelessly slandered here?  I think it's really ugly, and if saying that loses me friends I'll have to cope with it.

Knowing EA/Maxis, it is much more likely a higher up said "Ok, they have shut up and stopped posting patch rants on the official boards every day. You can stop posting there now."

[miclsimmer]

Marvin Kosh: what I want is a game I play.....and enjoy.
Not a game I am on alert for alerts and error messages that I have to either ignore because according to someone they don't mean anything and to someone else they mean the fireball visible for space will pervail.

What happened just Simming?

[MaxoidTom]

Has the Maxoid retreated back into the Maxis/EA bunker? Perhaps the Vamp biting Mrs. C ment his services were badly needed at home.

I'm still around, but my priorities are shifting to other things besides modder community support.  I'll still check in, but probably not with as much frequency as I used to visit.

[simmiecal]

Has the Maxoid retreated back into the Maxis/EA bunker? Perhaps the Vamp biting Mrs. C ment his services were badly needed at home.

I'm still around, but my priorities are shifting to other things besides modder community support.  I'll still check in, but probably not with as much frequency as I used to visit.

I hope you don't see it just as "modder" community support. I don't like downloading anything because I'm so technically "challenged" that I can never be sure I'm installing things correctly. The bugginess of University and the lack of EA/Maxis support/response to the issues forced me to seek support elsewhere.  I was putting off buying Nightlife until I saw that EA/Maxis actually seemed to take an interest in corresponding with users (evidenced by you posting on this forum).  I will be sorely disappointed to find out that this was a marketing stunt that coincided with Nightlife's release rather than a change in attitude by EA/Maxis in corresponding with the user community.

[nenechell]

As I was reading through this thread, I noticed a lot of talk about terrain paints.  I have had this problem as well, but decided to "delete" the terrain paint since I couldn't paint over it.  Holding down CTRL while spraying any terrain paint has worked every time for me.  I personally don't care for the water terrain's so I deleted them from my game, However, I didn't realize how much they were being used in lots that I had downloaded.  I have never had a problem deleting the blue left after the terrain paint has been deleted by using CTRL+spray terrain paint.  I thought maybe this would help someone else.

Nenechell

[Inge]

I hope you don't see it just as "modder" community support. I don't like downloading anything because I'm so technically "challenged" that I can never be sure I'm installing things correctly. The bugginess of University and the lack of EA/Maxis support/response to the issues forced me to seek support elsewhere.  I was putting off buying Nightlife until I saw that EA/Maxis actually seemed to take an interest in corresponding with users (evidenced by you posting on this forum).  I will be sorely disappointed to find out that this was a marketing stunt that coincided with Nightlife's release rather than a change in attitude by EA/Maxis in corresponding with the user community.

Tom's been communicating with players in forums since soon after The Sims 2 came out, and he says he will continue to do so.  Did you want them to pay someone just to read user forums all day?   Even Microsoft don't seem to do that.   In what capacity did you expect him to participate?   For all you know his personal interests may be boating, and he wants to spend his free time on yacht forums.   The Sims isn't a religion that you either all believe in or you're out.

[syberspunk]

yesterday some lady called one of sims up to meet her downtown and he got in the cab and left but when he got downtown the  live mode was greyed out,

 so I had to go back to the neighborhood without saving and  there he was getting out of the cab   

This is a reoccuring issue with a particular sim I am having, except not only does the live button grey out, the sim in question disappears all together. This is happening repeatedly, at Uni, but only with this one sim in particular. (I think - since he is the only playable sim at Uni right now) I have tried moving him out of his house, back in, and then onto a brand new lot. Finally I put him in a dorm until I can figure out how to unfubar him. He seems to disappear whenever an NPC arrives on lot, whether it be the maid or that gypsy lady. It didnt always happen, in fact I played him until the last of his Junior year bug free which leads into the next oddity...

I think it all started when he bought some love potion, and then requested a blind date (although it wasnt his first). He immediately drank the potion and then proceeded on his own (at home) with a tirade of questions to the blind date etc. I was looking at the cue of icons that popped up for him to initiate and about half of them were "bleh" and "be blehed". What the heck is that about? I know one of his contacts (and apparently a Uni sim) somehow got turned into a vampire (through no effort on my part) but I am not sure how that would effect my sim who has not even had contact with the vampire since the guy apparently turned into one when I wasnt looking. Anyway, suddenly the live button grayed out and he disappeared. The gardener, the maid and the gypsy plus blind date where all on the lot, I think there was also a passerby and the mailman as well. I exited and re-entered the lot, he disappeared again immediately. This time I deleted all the characters on the lot and re-entered, when I got back in the maid was in a driving position on the steps of his house, without a vehicle, so I deleted her and everyone else again. I re-entered and the gypsy lady and the blind date was gone, as was everyone else and I was able to play him again, for a while. The next day about the time the maid arrived he went mia again. So I moved him thinking a portal was broken or something. It didnt help, he disappeared when the gyspy showed up again to "welcome" him. I moved him out of that house and into a dorm, I havent played him since.

I wonder if the entire Uni neighborhood got fubared? So do I have to make a new Uni now? Seeing as how I cannot delete the current one else loose a bunch of memories or something.

I think I finally broke my game, although I broke it where I wasnt expecting it to break, in a Uni hood.

I dont know if this is just a Uni problem, if vampires are not supposed to be at uni or if the gypsy lady somehow got turned into a vampire but doesnt have the skin or what the heck is going on. I suspect my effected sim (one of the few townies with good genes incidently) will soon meet a tragic demise...

I don't know if this is the same issue but check out my post here. The original post is actually found in the InTeenimater forums over here. It sounds similar, but I can't say for sure that it is, epsecially since I haven't experienced it myself, but then again, I haven't even bothered to play NL yet.

Don't know if that will help at all. Obviously, if you haven't already reported this with the official bug form, I hope you do so and hopefully this will be figured out and fixed in time for the 2nd patch.

Ste

[sanmonroe]

I hope you don't see it just as "modder" community support. I don't like downloading anything because I'm so technically "challenged" that I can never be sure I'm installing things correctly. The bugginess of University and the lack of EA/Maxis support/response to the issues forced me to seek support elsewhere.  I was putting off buying Nightlife until I saw that EA/Maxis actually seemed to take an interest in corresponding with users (evidenced by you posting on this forum).  I will be sorely disappointed to find out that this was a marketing stunt that coincided with Nightlife's release rather than a change in attitude by EA/Maxis in corresponding with the user community.

Tom's been communicating with players in forums since soon after The Sims 2 came out, and he says he will continue to do so.  Did you want them to pay someone just to read user forums all day?   Even Microsoft don't seem to do that.   In what capacity did you expect him to participate?   For all you know his personal interests may be boating, and he wants to spend his free time on yacht forums.   The Sims isn't a religion that you either all believe in or you're out.

Sony has been doing that for years and now Blizzard is catching on to doing that since the WoW burst. Extremely low cost to hire 1 or 2 full time people and several part timers (part time = low pay and no benefiets). A game that generates as much money as TS2 has no excuse not to do so. They get extremely consistent control of thier boards, communication, etc.

The reason they don't though is just bad shortsighted buisness. Simmasters are free, they can run a tiny staff, let what goes on go on and ignore it. The result, poor communication between the company and consumers, a shorthanded staff having to make up for it when there is a problem, people like Tom getting stuck taking the brunt of the criticism when it is finally decided to let someone calm the fires down. Etc. In the short term you save money (bigger quarterly bonus for the manegment), in the long term you piss off customers and lose future purchases. EA/maxis seems to have a "there are plenty more fish in the sea" attitude in regards to customer disatisfation.

Most of the big companies are going in one of three directions.

First is hire people to run your communitty. This is what seems to work best for most companies (although the third is much cooler). 100 posts by a simmaster saying "I am sure they are working on it" is no where near as effective as any single Tom post we have gotten. You also have control and consistancy you cannot get with a volunteer staff, no matter how dedicated.

The second  is to throw the community out completely to fansites. No boards on the main site, but one or two big sites that agree to abide by your rules get a link on the site. This has the same communication problem the Sims2 BBs has, but this way the company can ignore everything without ever having an employee or anyone officially affiliated make any comments. Vivendi loves these. Firaxis also does this, but when you do this you run the risk of the sites being full of neo-nazis, hate mongerers, and thousands of threads about abortion, gun control, etc  in the off topic areas.

The third is pretty rare. Small Developer driven companies are pushing towards high interaction directly with the players by the dev team. The Gal Civ/Stardock teams are the best example, although Sony seems to be trying something similar with EQ2 after they promoted all their reps but one up a level. The Vanguard team is kind of moving in this direction, if they go with it they will be the first MS affiliated group to do so. Customers love this. But corporate groups with 100 layers of manegement and marketting departments to run things by, and TPS reports to fill out, are not going to be good. No one wants to say something that will get another department or a manager pissed off, and everything pisses one of them off.