No Townie/NPC Move-In Amnesia *EXPERIMENTAL*

[J. M. Pescado]

Eliminates the mind-wipe and replacement with an incorrect CAS history of all moved-in townies and NPCs. Now they'll retain the memories of their formerly long and immortal lives and all of the accidents they had when getting stuck in the basement. Note that this feature is actually intentional, and not a bug. Even if it's not to your liking. And some sims really could use their wipe. The long-term consequences of not doing this are unknown. This hack remains classified as "Experimental" as a result.


nomoveamnesia.zip

RTFM:
No Move-In Amnesia *EXPERIMENTAL* (v1b) for TS2U v1.0
Made by: Flying Fish Systems (J. M. Pescado)

Special Thanks To:
Quaxi, for writing SimPE
Fairlight the Bitch

Congratulations to: Draklixa!

INSTRUCTIONS:
Place in your MYDOCU~1\EAGAME~1\THESIM~1\DOWNLO~1 directory.

FEATURES:
Eliminates the move-in mindwiping that occurs when a townie or NPC is moved
or married onto the lot: They will retain all of their pre-existing memories
instead of being mindwiped and replaced with a blank CAS history of incorrect
memories.

COMPATIBILITY:
Compatible with all FFS Hacks. Tested for TS2U v1.0.

SIDE EFFECTS:
May cause computer damage, incontinence, explosion of user's head, coma, death,
and/or halitosis.

[Ancient Sim]

Now that's what I call quick work.  Consider the invisible "Thanks" button well and truly hit.  Will try this out first thing tomorrow and see what happens when Lazlo Curious invites Crystal Vu (VU?  Who is called VU?) to move in.

[Oddysey]

It's a reference to "The Insidious Doctor Vu," a character named after one of the core sim team members. He also shows up involved in various nefarious plots in Sim City 4. I'm not sure if that's the guy's actual name, or a net handle, but he's the one who told everyone that he'd lobbied hard for polygamy in TS2, based on his own personal experience. "Vu's personal experience" was for a while a pretty much catch-all excuse for why something random and weird was in The Sims. Rather like Boris, from what I've heard about him.

[syberspunk]

Hrm... interesting. Because of all the weird bugginess with NPCs, I've done my best to avoid getting my sims entangled in relationships with them. Well, at least to the point of only having some "romantic" flings and leaving it at that. With all the trouble associated with them, it seemed worthless to attempt trying to invite them into families.

Anyways... just wondering then... do you think that the npc/townie mind wipe was an intentional afterthought? Perhaps evidence that Maxis knew it was a bad idea for sims to have Too Many memories? Which only leads to your game blowing up in a fiery ball that could be seen from outerspace anyways. I guess not really, since they were so many OTHER obvious ways that the game can blow up, this was probably an unintentional fluke of an error that actually works in favor of NOT blowing up. :p

And do townies also get Amnesia? I thought that "feature" was only isolated to NPCs. :p

Ste

[J. M. Pescado]

When a townie or NPC moves in or is married, all of his memories get replaced as if he were a CAS sim, meaning he gets the useless mystery sim "best friend", "first kiss", etc memories, unless he moves in as a marriage, in which case the spouse will replace the mystery sim. This occurs regardless of whether the memories involved are actually TRUE.

[veilchen]

This might seem like an awfully silly question. Due to the fact that townies and NPC's are so bug-ridden I've never actually moved-in/married-to any townie or NPC to my sims (so I'm a nervous nellie, so what?). I don't even hire NPC's if I can avoid it at all. That's one of the reasons the Macrotastic was like a wish fulfillment, now my sims will clean and garden until the job is done and I don't have to micro manage. If baby duties clash with job duties, I usually make a new CAS and have it join the household in order to avoid the Nannies. So, my question is: do the townies/NPC's loose only their memories upong move-in/marriage, or do they loose friendships and other things as well?

So go and point and laugh at this silly question, can I help it if I'm paranoid where EA/Maxis is concerned?

G.

[Ancient Sim]

So, my question is: do the townies/NPC's loose only their memories upong move-in/marriage, or do they loose friendships and other things as well?G.

They don't lose friendships, but they lose all memory of having met their friends.  This automatically puts them at a big disadvantage in terms of achieving various wants, such as "Have 10 Best Friends" (if they already had achieved that, it would go).  I'm not sure if they lose any built-up aspiration points as well, I'll have to check that.  I had a big problem due to this glitch (according to the BBS, that's what it is, although that doesn't prove anything!) when Amin Sims married one of my Sims.  I can't remember if he moved in first or not, but I know he lost his memory of having his first kiss with his wife and falling in love with her, resulting in her daughter being convinced that both he and her mother were cheating on "Mystery Sim".  That's when I first discovered the problem and had to go into SimPE to alter all his memories so he was allowed to kiss his wife again.

[veilchen]

Thank you for the 'heads up' Ancient. I will continue to not move-in/marry townies or NPC's then until someone braver than I am has tested JM's experiment a little more thoroughly.

I do believe that the memory wipe was intentionally done by Maxis to avoid in-depth testing proceedures in case there are bugs associated with leaving the memories intact. Seeing all the bugs they just ignored in favor of rushing the game and its ep to the market, I don't believe they care much about their product or their customers, just about their own profit. The townies/NPC's don't have too many memories to start with anyways, at least not much more than the regular playable sims. I guess just wiping them was the easiest way out, and promptly taken by EA/Maxis.

G.

[Marvin Kosh]

I guess just wiping them was the easiest way out, and promptly taken by EA/Maxis.

That wouldn't surprise me in the least, though I suppose it was a good call stability-wise to institute a mindwipe since technically townies and NPCs can live forever (until they meet a sharp and painful end) and so they can have memories of meeting ten generations of Sims.

Just out of curiosity, do Townies get inheritance memories at all?

[Ancient Sim]

It may well be the reason they do it, to get rid of loads of memories, I can appreciate that, but they could at the very least have left the important ones intact.  What I have done when I've moved them in is just add back the visible memories that relate to them personally, I've not added back stupid invisible memories about people they barely know getting an A+ or whatever, or I'd have been there forever.  That apart, if there is a limit on memories, why is this the case?  Especially as the game includes ways playable Sims can live forever and build-up loads of the things, which include the Elixir, resurrection and simply turning off ageing.  It doesn't make sense that they would offer these facilities if excessive memories really were such a problem.

[Oddysey]

It might be nice to have an option to neuralyze them . . . but I guess that's what Carrigon's memories in a bottle is for. If they have too many memories of dead sims, just zap 'em with that. Not perfect, but a serviceable solution.

I actually have a hard time blaming Maxis for this craptastic bugfest. It looks to me like this is a classic case of Management Deadlines vs. Devolepment Team = Squish. Seen it happen to KOTOR II. That thing didn't even have an actual ending, just a weird wrap up where various minor characters suddenly appeared, disappeared, and generally did things to wreck suspension of disbelief. It happened to Jak 3. The original screw up that was Jak II (A good game, but it could have been way cooler.) was nothing compared to the massive display of rushed-ness that was Jak 3. They gameplay was beautiful, but the plot and the cut scenes sucked.

Mind you, this is because I like Maxis. I've been a fan of theirs since Sim City 2000 was new. I've played all the Sim City games, Sim Life, and Sim Earth. I enjoyed all of them. Now, granted, Sim Life and Earth had serious bug and documentation issues, but this was before they were acquired by EA and had so little money that the company controller would come by Will Wright's office and say "You don't really need that computer, do you?" Now, instead of EA providing them with resources and allowing them to do their thing, it has to get involved with everything, totally screwing everything up. The only developer at Maxis who doesn't get hammered by management idiocy is Will Wright, because he's made two huge blockbuster franchises, and it shows. As soon as he leaves a franchise, it starts sucking. (Note the downward spiral in bugishness in Sims1 expansion packs.)

Okay, that's enough rant for today.

[Ancient Sim]

Well, Crystal Vu has married Lazlo Curious with no problems and she kept all her memories - YIPPEE!!!  She has also got pregnant with no hassle.  IT WORKS!

[smcnic]

So I'm curious, what problems do people have when moving in townies/NPCs (aside from the Mystery Sim thing already mentioned)?  The majority of my Sims end up marrying and living with townies, and I've never had a noticable problem.   

[Ancient Sim]

So I'm curious, what problems do people have when moving in townies/NPCs (aside from the Mystery Sim thing already mentioned)?  The majority of my Sims end up marrying and living with townies, and I've never had a noticable problem.   

Well, I guess it's not a problem if you don't mind them all having total amnesia, but personally I just don't like it!  NPC's can be a problem for other reasons, though.  When Brandi Broke married the headmaster Vince Walter in my game, he was very unsure of his identity.  Even though I kept removing his NPC bits in SimPE, they came back.  Once he decided he didn't live there and tried to collect his own toddler, another time said toddler wanted to "schmooze" him about politics.  Then when he became an elder, everytime I went into the lot he had gone back to being an adult.  I also have a llama mascot who lives in a Greek house as he's partnered-up with one of the resident students.  He behaves like a normal YA (goes to classes and so on) and wears normal clothes, but every so often he reverts to being a mascot (even though I've removed his NPC tokens) and appears in the dorms in his mascot gear.  No idea what will happen with him when he gros up and moves to Pleasantview, but I've heard other people say that the streakers still streak in the main neighbourhood and that sort of thing.  I've also had two maids marry playable Sims, but haven't had any problems with them.

[reggikko]

So I'm curious, what problems do people have when moving in townies/NPCs (aside from the Mystery Sim thing already mentioned)?  The majority of my Sims end up marrying and living with townies, and I've never had a noticable problem.   

I frequently marry Townies, and recently NPCs, into my families. As for Townies, I don't think there are any real problems other than the memories. (reggikko thanks J.M. Pescado for this useful post) Some NPCs can cause problems, notably the Headmaster, cheerleaders, and mascots. I'm doing the legacy challenge, where you accrue points for marrying NPCs, and I've had no issues so far. I've gotten a bit hooked on the surprise of what their Aspirations and personalities are. It adds another little challenge to the game.

[Oddysey]

I think maids are less of a problem than headmasters because their behavior is fairly simple and doesn't involve a whole lot of new pie menus and whatnot, and because there's an ingame moment that turns it off. (Now that I'm done with work, do you want to hang out?) That would make it easier to debug.

I actually kind of like the idea of having a streaker in my regular neighborhood . . . may have to play with that.

[dsk]

Will this work for adopted children?  Would be nice if they remembered the tragic events prior to them being taken away.

[Marvelleaux]

After "flubbing up beyond repair" my last custom neighborhood (that I was VERY attached to and would have liked to continue playing) thanks to trusting EA/Maxis-provided game-play strategy and moving sims out of one neighborhood and into another (I.E. the Bella Goth stupidness) AND filling this neighborhood exclusively with moved-in townies and NPC's I'm begining to consider myself an expert in one Sims Gameplay Strategy:  Use whatever experimental hacks you want, backup your neighborhoods regularly, and when the inevitable happens and a long list of corruptions that you didn't (and couldn't) see finally starts making your game unplayable or worse yet--kind of playable--you need to just suck it up, trash the neighborhood and start a new one.  Yeah, I said it.  And don't go bawling your head off about it, either, or I'll give you a public wedgie.  *bleah*

Downloading Now

[themaltesebippy]

What if you have a regular character that you want out of the house for awhile so you make them a townie with the Simlogical painting?  Would that do any damage?  I did this in my old neighborhood and moved the sims back in and they didn't lose any memories.

[J. M. Pescado]

If the moving is accomplished via the Ingelogical shrub, townies will not lose their memories because the standard move-in process (receive random funds, be mindwiped and reset to CAS generation memories) is bypassed. Otherwise your sims would be wiped, unless you have this.

[themaltesebippy]

Yes, the painting, like the shrub.  I had a sim in a house who was a townie (in my custom hood, all townies are made by me).  I moved her in but now she really isn't doing anything useful, just aging.  I figure get her outta here until I find her a man or some other sims move out of the house.  I used to do this to sims before I had the no baby harassment hack.  I was sick of seeing 6 adults obsessed with putting a friggin toddler to bed.  Thanks.

[reggikko]

I came across a problem with this one. Here's the situation. With the hack in, when a graduated Sim moves back to the regular Hood and invites a YA from Uni to move in, the ungraduated (unplayed) townie Sim is supposed to graduate on the same level as the (played) graduate. IE, they should have all the skill points that would have been necessary for the degree, have the 6 Want Slots, etc. With the hack in, they come with no skills and sometimes without the want slots. I took the hack out, and all worked as it should. BTW, this isn't in reference to a mascot, I know they are snarky, but a regular Uni townie.

[Meek_Monkey]

JM I don't think this was mentioned above I started a legacy family and sent my first sim through uni. He met and fell in love with his wife there and got engaged to her. She was on of the dorm roomates anyway He graduacted and went to the hood I then bought his 5X5 lots and put a phone on it he called his love and invited her over she moved in and keep all of her memerious but the part I didnt like was that she became a normal sims no grad from college. In other words she didnt have the extra 3 slots and two wants lock and no degree. So I exited the house without saving and unloaded my game and removed this mod reloaded and went to my legacy hood and loaded the house again and invited his now wife over and asked her to move in she got her extra wants and her degree but lost some of her memerious.

[J. M. Pescado]

That would be a potential artifact, yes. The CAS memory generation is suppressed, so the sim simply retains its existing memoryset. Unless that functionality is invoked, the sim will not gain the extra "Graduation" memories it never earned, but if that functionality *IS* invoked, the sim is mindwiped and forgets all about what people they actually met there. No-win situation, really.

[Meek_Monkey]

Ok then now I can use it until u have them tested for nightlife as I also have it installed. I have already found out that all of my custom recolours and game objects are still working also new meshes and hair styles that I have downloaded. clothes as well work even all of the objects and new meshes for objects work