Bon Voyage dissatisfaction

[Sivany]

Whoever it was that realised stopping the game from dialling home reduces loading times is a genius! When I started the game without cc in place it took as long as it did for Seasons to load with cc in place. When I put the cc back it was taking 40 minutes to load BV and another 10 minutes to load a neighbourhood and 5 minutes to load each lot. Now by simply removing the internet cable from the wall before playing the loading time is actually less than it was before I installed BV! Since I was about ready to uninstall BV/buy a new computer/scream/kick the cat this is a huge relief.

Now my only dissatisfaction is that hotel lots run so slowly. I used to be able to have parties on home lots with 8 sims living there and 15 guests barely any lag at all. Now in hotel lots when there are my 2 playable sims plus 12-15 tourist sims present the game crawls. Even at the fastest speed it still runs at an extremely laggy version of the slowest speed (as in one sim minute passes every 3 seconds) I sent my sims to sleep, turned the speed up and went to make lunch. When I returned my sims were still asleep.  Not impressed at all. I ended up building a hotel with just two rooms to limit the number of tourist sims and that plays just fine. All normal community lots at holiday destinations also run fine.

Anyhow I think the time has come to upgrade something on my computer. The graphics card (a RADEON 9600 with only 256MB RAM) is looking the most likely candidate, but if anyone knows otherwise I would be happy to hear your advice (I have 1GB RAM, should I look at increasing that?) My computer knowledge is somewhat limited and my brother doesn't play the sims so isn't really best placed to give advice. His solution is "buy a new computer, yours is rubbish" which isn't exactly helpful.

[Ness]

3. And please, please, please someone make a "no autonomous Tai Chi" hack, and "no autonomous sea chanty" would be very, very nice, too.

Seconded.

That bloody sea shanty - or 'chanty' as EAxis have decided to call it - is viral. My sim autonomously taught it to a local in the Far East, he's taught it to at least 3 other locals, so now I have a bunch of sims in kimonos singing sea shanties on the commlots all the time. (Shows you how long I've been hunting the damn ninja).

Tai chi is irritating but at least it's quiet.

Thirded.

I've got mountain men doing tai chi and singing sea shanties.  I've got islanders doing tai chi and slap dancing.  I've got sims in kimonos singing sea shanties and doing the hula.  Not to mention the fact that none of the locals are using the right greeting any more!  Mountain men are wanting to hang loose, sims in kimonos are chest pounding...  argh!

Surely there must be some way to keep each greeting, dance, thing isolated to the appropriate vacation area?

[pioupiou]

Surely there must be some way to keep each greeting, dance, thing isolated to the appropriate vacation area?

That's what I would like to have as a mod. I don't care if my playable autonomously chants or use the greetings, or dance.... But I don't want the islander to do tai chi, and the far east peaople to slap dance and so on.... If nothing gets done to stop that stupid behaviour, the sims will only need to go to one destination to learn all of the gesture, dances etc...

[sloppyhousewife]

Ah, yes - the greeting. I'd like to see chest pounding towards a far east local "rewarded" with a severe relationship drop. Same for any other inappropriate greeting combos, of course, but this example seems especially rude to me.

A "locals are immune to foreign habits" hack would really be great. I wouldn't mind my sims autonomously trying to do idiot interactions, though, because behaving like idiots is just what tourists do. If it only wasn't that fucking obsessive!

[trudy]

my stupid questions:

- No aging on vacation? So pregnancys are just stuck?
- Are beaches in normal neighbourhoods now swimable?

[sloppyhousewife]

my stupid questions:

- No aging on vacation? So pregnancys are just stuck?
- Are beaches in normal neighbourhoods now swimable?

- Yes and yes
- You need a beach lot (new lot type) for this, but yes.

[squish]

You know, I realize that people are down on the Prima guides here, but while they may not always be correct because of the design document issue, they do a pretty good job of explaining how things were INTENDED to work. A lot of the questions people have had in this thread and others have been covered in the guide -- like how the ninja answers are random like chance cards, or how hotels are supposed to work in non-vacation hoods. Lots of otherwise clueful people have spent a lot of time trying to figure out "how the hell does this work?" instead of "does this work the way they say it does?" when the latter would probably have been simpler.

Some of us don't own Prima Guides. Some of us believe manuals ought to come with the software. I've never bought a Prima Guide for any sim game or EP.

I've never even seen a Prima Guide for sale before 

I'd also like to see a no Tai Chi hack. I'm not sure what annyos me the most - the whoosh whoosh of the sims changing outfits (particularly when there's  few sims on the lot. Ugh that noise), or that the sims take forever to stop.

[akatonbo]

You know, I realize that people are down on the Prima guides here, but while they may not always be correct because of the design document issue, they do a pretty good job of explaining how things were INTENDED to work. A lot of the questions people have had in this thread and others have been covered in the guide -- like how the ninja answers are random like chance cards, or how hotels are supposed to work in non-vacation hoods. Lots of otherwise clueful people have spent a lot of time trying to figure out "how the hell does this work?" instead of "does this work the way they say it does?" when the latter would probably have been simpler.

Some of us don't own Prima Guides. Some of us believe manuals ought to come with the software. I've never bought a Prima Guide for any sim game or EP.

I certainly don't believe everyone needs to BUY them -- I do, because I prefer to have the information on paper, but if the prevailing attitude here weren't that the guides are worthless, then more people might have the information to share, or be inclined to link to said information offsite. BV seems to be particularly non-intuitive (at least, I've never noticed so much confusion over how things work, period, by people here before, only on other sites where the average clue level is much lower), and the guide therefore particularly useful.

[Zazazu]

- Yes and yes
- You need a beach lot (new lot type) for this, but yes.

The beach lots are not terribly hard to place, just hard to make usable. All are 5 deep. If building a new terrain, you want your streets 1-2 squares from the water (in SimCity4). 1 1/2 really is best to get a good beach and buildable land. You also want the area close to sea level. Try to keep your beaches as true to N-S and E-W as possible, as the game will make the shore straight regardless of how the coast actually runs. My 'hood looks a little borked at the moment due to that.

[Inge]

I think this might work for making Tourist families - they're not like Townies, they are complete families in the 7FEn range.  Just make a CAS family then edit them in SimPE to give them a family number 7FE(something) - making sure to get rid of the sims already at that family number.  There seem to be 4 sims in each tourist family, I am not sure if that is a requirment

[Kralore]

I've been building a hotel lot in a custom BV hood, and while playtesting it, I discovered that the "buy" option has been disable on clothing racks when they are placed on lodging/hotel lots.  The "buy" option is there when they are placed on community lots, just not on lodging/hotel lots.  I loaded up the 3 hoods that came with BV and looked at all the pre-built hotels that came with BV, and i've noticed that none of them have clothing racks on the hotel lots.  I think for some reason EA has decided to disable the "buy" option only for lodging/hotel lots.

[jolrei]

I've been building a hotel lot in a custom BV hood, and while playtesting it, I discovered that the "buy" option has been disable on clothing racks when they are placed on lodging/hotel lots...I think for some reason EA has decided to disable the "buy" option only for lodging/hotel lots.

Because who would ever in their right mind want to put a shop in a hotel?  I have not found a hotel restaurant yet, although I have not had sims stay at all resorts or hotels yet either.  There are tables and chairs that look like dining rooms, but no fridges in the kitchens and no option to have or serve a meal, no waiters etc.  Perhaps I need to try a few more hotels.  Room service works fine. 

[pixiejuice]

I haven't had much time to play it yet, but I thought I'd throw in my list of complaints as well

Ordering pictures is annoying so far.  You have to do each print or album separately, and they're delivered separately as well.  Maybe there's something I'm missing?

The beach lots are huge!  I sure hope somebody can make us up some smaller sizes, like a 1x5, or 2x5, I suppose if they have to be 5 deep.  I was hoping to build some cute little beach-front private bungalows, or something.

So far, it's looking like all the tourist "families" are blood related.  I'm wondering if there are any "families" of singles?  What fun is spring break for my college kids if the only tourists are married people and teenagers?  I guess the locals are single though, right? 

I think this might work for making Tourist families - they're not like Townies, they are complete families in the 7FEn range.  Just make a CAS family then edit them in SimPE to give them a family number 7FE(something) - making sure to get rid of the sims already at that family number.  There seem to be 4 sims in each tourist family, I am not sure if that is a requirment

Do you think this would work with groupings of college students as well? 

Whoever it was that realised stopping the game from dialling home reduces loading times is a genius! ...Now by simply removing the internet cable from the wall before playing the loading time is actually less than it was before I installed BV!

I've noticed the load times take forever too.  I managed to fold four loads of laundry last night while waiting for loading screens   So is disconnecting the only way to prevent the dialing home?  I often like to pop on and off of the internet while Simming, so I hope there's another way.

[J. M. Pescado]

I've got mountain men doing tai chi and singing sea shanties.  I've got islanders doing tai chi and slap dancing.  I've got sims in kimonos singing sea shanties and doing the hula.

Looking into disabling some of this.

Not to mention the fact that none of the locals are using the right greeting any more!  Mountain men are wanting to hang loose, sims in kimonos are chest pounding...  argh!

According to the code, this isn't supposed to happen already. The locals ALREADY are locked out from autonomously initiating strange greetings, although your sims aren't. But they're stupid tourists.

Surely there must be some way to keep each greeting, dance, thing isolated to the appropriate vacation area?

Death to all Nesses.

[Zazazu]

So far, it's looking like all the tourist "families" are blood related.  I'm wondering if there are any "families" of singles?  What fun is spring break for my college kids if the only tourists are married people and teenagers?  I guess the locals are single though, right? 

As far as I can tell, the tourist family members aren't married. I kept zooming in on hands, and no rings. Haven't tried marrying one yet.

My tourists are also starting to merge behaviors. Lilly taught Ricky or whatever (husband at the time...he's been dumped, anyways) the chest pound. He then was running up to lots of locals and tourists doing it. And guess what I then saw? A local, practicing the chest pound on a tourist. Grr.

Yes, ordering pics is annoying. However. You can theoretically take pics of anything and replace the images with anything else...other in-game shots (I find the picture-taking window placement restrictive) or artwork. Just like with Pets and the custom paintings.

[FlareStorm]

Wow. I removed it, just BV. Figured I'd wait for the patch and wait for more updated/tested hacks.

Not only did it delete my neighborhoods, it deleted everything. My entire EA Games folder!  Thankfully I had it all backed up, but it seemed a little extreme.

[Inge]

Do you think this would work with groupings of college students as well? 

Yes I can't see why not.

[J. M. Pescado]

Not only did it delete my neighborhoods, it deleted everything. My entire EA Games folder!  Thankfully I had it all backed up, but it seemed a little extreme.

This is normal. I believe it actually warns of this. The reason this happens is because if you uninstall an expansion, the previous expansion wil not be able to read the new datafiles and will barf. Thus, the uninstaller removes them to allow the game to regenerate them. You would have had to reload backups anyway, from pre-BV.

[FlareStorm]

It said something like "Saved games from this expansion won't work anymore."  It didn't warn me that it would delete all my custom content, projects folder, .sc4 terrain, etc.

[Zazazu]

It said something like "Saved games from this expansion won't work anymore."  It didn't warn me that it would delete all my custom content, projects folder, .sc4 terrain, etc.

This is why you backup everything in the My Documents/EA Games folder before adding an expansion. Everything. You've just learned the hard way. Been there, done that. T-shirt sucks.

[ZiggyDoodle]

I have not found a hotel restaurant yet,

The Twikkii Beach Hotel has a restaurant, as do the other "$$$$" hotels at the other vacationlands.  But the menus are the same-old, same-old.  You have to travel to the food stands for local fare.

[skandelouslala]

I've noticed the load times take forever too.  I managed to fold four loads of laundry last night while waiting for loading screens   So is disconnecting the only way to prevent the dialing home?  I often like to pop on and off of the internet while Simming, so I hope there's another way.

As someone else rec'd to in this thread already, ZoneAlarm, I gave it a try and am extremely happy with it.  As soon as it tried to phone home that mf'er got denied permanantly.

[Tigerlilley]

My sim tried to Bow to a Hula girl and got a relationship drop which I thought was good.  But not being deterred she went off and tried bowing to more hula girls and tourists.  Gah

The one thing that has really annoyed me (although its easily fixed) is that none of the hotels I've stayed in have MIRRORS.  So when my sim digs up a shell necklace he can't put it on straight away

[jsalemi]

I just saw a BV stupidity.  Sims check into a hotel (in the asia place) and order room service.  I had them get a serving plate, because there was more than one person. Waiter brings it and plops it on the table, which has seating for two. One sim grabs a plate and sits in the other chair.  The next sim grabs a plate, and instead of sitting in the other chair or in the love seat in the next room, walks ALL the way to the dining room at the other end of the hall, and sits at a table there to eat!

[neriana]

Sim seating behavior has always been stupid. I've given up on having a patio table or breakfast nook, because then I invariably get Sims sitting all over the place. I can see this getting even worse with hotels.