Mrs. Crumplebottom Vampire. Her true calling?

[miramis]

About replacing the objects.package, I'm guessing the one on the Nightlife cd is called objects09.package since it's the closest I can find, do I just copy that and rename it or am I completely off the mark?  I've never done this before 

[dizzy]

Is there any valid reason (other than a Maxis patch release) why this file should not be read-only?

That could cause the app to crash, depending on how robust the code is (and you can probably guess that).

[J. M. Pescado]

If the game is crashing because it actually tried to write to a read-only file, it's probably better off that way.

[jrd]

The NL objects.package is inside compressed.zip on the second disc.

FYI, marking the file "read-only" has not caused a crash in Uni, I've had it marked as such for months.

[miramis]

The NL objects.package is inside compressed.zip on the second disc.

FYI, marking the file "read-only" has not caused a crash in Uni, I've had it marked as such for months.

Thanks so much Jordi!

[Gus Smedstad]

I have notified some people here of the problem, but it would be good if you submitted a bug report as well (using the form on the official bbs), just to let them know that users have encountered the problem.

I think MaxoidTom deserves another round of appreciation.

Huzzah!  Huzzah!  Huzzah!

 - Gus

[Gus Smedstad]

Look at the modification date.  Compare it against when you installed NL or extract objects.package from the NL installation cd and compare the sizes.

Uh-oh.  I just encountered this one myself.  The file is 2,578 KB bigger than the install version, and the modification date is today at 11 AM.  I noticed the "hang out" icon wasn't showing right, and I remembered this thread.

My first indication that anything was wrong was the abnormal end of a date.  My Sim had returned from the downtown lot with his date still in progress, and then he had to go to his final - I hadn't been watching his clock closely.  This ended his date, but the "go to class" icon was a blue blob like "clean puddle."  Of course that may not be the actual cause of the file corruption.

 - Gus

[MaxoidTom]

*sigh* this is bad.  It may corrupt your objects.package file.  I would check to see if that has happened.

Before NightLife, I ran the game for several months with the objects.package file marked as read-only.  That seemed to prevent large amounts of weirdness and bugs.  I've now done the same thing with the NightLife objects.package file.  Is there any valid reason (other than a Maxis patch release) why this file should not be read-only?

Marking it read-only should be fine and is a good recommended work-around for now.  For some reason the file gets marked writable during installation (I think)--I'll have to investigate.

[Hook]

Marking it read-only should be fine and is a good recommended work-around for now.  For some reason the file gets marked writable during installation (I think)--I'll have to investigate.

Yay!! Thanks MaxoidTom, that's great.  Making the file read-only was my immediate thought the first time I read that the objects file was getting corrupted. 

Hook

[Hook]

And what about vampires randomly biting other sims, like Brandi Broke and Dina Caliente? I've read a few posts over on the BBS about this and was puzzled. I was under the impression that a sim would only be bit if they had a high enough relationship with the vampire. I'm not really into that aspect of gameplay (have very few aliens and no zombies either) so I thought if my sims avoided them like they do the child townies I wouldn't have any other vampires than the ones that came with the game. Are these incidents of "random" biting a glitch also?

I understand that if you never have a playable Sim become a vampire in a neighborhood, the grand vampire will never bite any townies, so you should never have a problem.  And the grand vampire should only bite townies, and other townies who become vampires will only bite other townies, until a maximum of 10% of townies are vampires.

You should only worry if you have a playable Sim become a vampire, in which case they might bite other playable Sims.  And a potion is available from the gypsy to cure the problem if you wish.

Hook

[Oddysey]

And what about vampires randomly biting other sims, like Brandi Broke and Dina Caliente? I've read a few posts over on the BBS about this and was puzzled. I was under the impression that a sim would only be bit if they had a high enough relationship with the vampire. I'm not really into that aspect of gameplay (have very few aliens and no zombies either) so I thought if my sims avoided them like they do the child townies I wouldn't have any other vampires than the ones that came with the game. Are these incidents of "random" biting a glitch also?

What Hook has reported has also been my experience. One further note is that the Grand Vampires seem to be able to ignore relationship requirements, a power which goes away if they become playable characters. Not *absolutely* sure on that front, but otherwise Mrs. CrumpleBottom would have been able to reject the hypnotism attempt, because technically she can't build relationship with anyone.

For once, this is a problem that Maxis warned us about. Remember in that chat? The choice word was "viral." Too true. Like diseases, vampirism spreads like a wildfire, especially (hypothetically, going to test) in a tight knit neighborhood where everyone's friends.

Have set objects.package as Read Only.

[sara_dippity]

Marking it read-only should be fine and is a good recommended work-around for now.  For some reason the file gets marked writable during installation (I think)--I'll have to investigate.

Do we need to change it back to writeable when we install another expansion?

[miramis]

I understand that if you never have a playable Sim become a vampire in a neighborhood, the grand vampire will never bite any townies, so you should never have a problem.  And the grand vampire should only bite townies, and other townies who become vampires will only bite other townies, until a maximum of 10% of townies are vampires.

You should only worry if you have a playable Sim become a vampire, in which case they might bite other playable Sims.  And a potion is available from the gypsy to cure the problem if you wish.

Hook

It hasn't worked like that in my game, the first bite was when Alvin influenced the Countess to bite a downtownie, the second was at his home when she autonomously bit him (I swear I didn't know they could do that without user intervention so I kind of panicked lol).  After that she and the Count have made a few new vamps autonomously out of downtownies.  I think once you give the vamps a taste of sim, that's when they start multiplying like roaches.

Tom
I'm glad you are still around, your posts here have helped me more than you know.

[Hook]

If you don't have the Prima guide, check out this link for the info on vampires copied from the guide:

http://www.livejournal.com/community/thesims2/1284926.html

Hook

[Motoki]

Sara: No you shouldn't need to change it back if they follow the pattern they've done so far. Each expansion has it's own objects.package and I believe the game will use the objects.package file that belongs to the most recent expansion installed and ignore the others.

re Vamps biting other sims: They don't just do townies, they do service npcs too. In my neighborhood that darned countess bit a waitress and so now she high tails it the hell out of there when dawn hits.  

I think they made the vampires a little bit bite crazy, and although they have to be very good friends to bite your sim, they are perfectly happy to bite total strangers among the townies and service npcs. And Mrs. Crumplebottom is obviously a stranger to everyone since it's impossible to have a relationship with her. Seems like they just bite anything that moves.  

[sara_dippity]

So if we have problems with memories, should we extract all three objects files and make them all read only?

[MaxoidTom]

Marking it read-only should be fine and is a good recommended work-around for now.  For some reason the file gets marked writable during installation (I think)--I'll have to investigate.

Do we need to change it back to writeable when we install another expansion?

No, that should not be necessary for new expansion packs.  For patches, we should handle it on our side, but if there is ever a problem patching, you may want to make it writable and then make it readonly again after the patching process.

[MaxoidTom]

So if we have problems with memories, should we extract all three objects files and make them all read only?

You should only need to extract the objects.package from the latest expansion pack.

[simmiecal]

I think they made the vampires a little bit bite crazy, and although they have to be very good friends to bite your sim, they are perfectly happy to bite total strangers among the townies and service npcs.

In my neighborhood, once the virus started spreading, the Count was biting my sims (not townies nor NPCs) that were "visiting" the downtown lot while I was controlling other sims. One sim, Emma, was made into a vampire this way. When I went to load her at her lot, she was outside in the middle of the day (from the last lot save) and her needs weren't that high to begin with. Barely was able to get her inside before she turned to ashes. 

That night, I had Emma call the Count for a date - figured they could at least have dinner together after he bit her. He rejected the date and then I checked their relationship numbers. She had a 12/7 for him. So the Count didn't need a high relationship number in order to bite her.

Whenever I've tried to influence a vampire to bite another sim, the bite has been rejected if the relationship score wasn't high enough but this doesn't seem to be true for the autonomous biting that is going on.

[Zythe]

Idiots on the BBS are claiming that this thread doesn't exist, and that we are all liars. They probably can't handle that bugs exist so freely in the game, becuase Maxis are above human and can't make mistakes, clearly.

[Motoki]

Well tell them Bella Goth is really a vampire countess and she bit Mrs. Crumplebottom and then they'd believe it. 

[SciBirg]

You found BELLA??!!!??!! 

[Azkar]

Idiots on the BBS are claiming that this thread doesn't exist, and that we are all liars. They probably can't handle that bugs exist so freely in the game, becuase Maxis are above human and can't make mistakes, clearly.

Well, of course they can't find this thread.  They probably can't afford the monthly subscription ..

[jfade]

re Vamps biting other sims: They don't just do townies, they do service npcs too. In my neighborhood that darned countess bit a waitress and so now she high tails it the hell out of there when dawn hits.

Well, hopefully this can help. I've spent the last few hours trying to figure out how to test what type of NPC a person is (if any) so that I could add to the Bite Neck test BHAV a check to see if a sim is a NPC to prevent vampires (Yours or otherwise) from biting them. I finally found another social that showed how the game tests NPC type well enough for me to copy the method, and I've come up with this:





It basically checks to see if the person about to be bitten is an NPC of any type, and if they are, it prevents the menu from being shown. It's working great in my game, and if anyone would like to test it, here's the link to the zip:

http://beta.djssims.com/djsvampiresnobitenpcs.zip

Thanks in advance!

[Motoki]

Oh great, I'll try it out. Thanks!

I wonder if Mrs. Crumplebottom is considered an npc for the purposes of preventing being bitten.