Bon Voyage dissatisfaction

[sewinglady]

Am I the only one who has been unable to successfully complete a vacation?  Every time I send sims on vacation, something goes horribly wrong!

1st time, another adult in the household showed up as a non-playable hotel guest, but then started acting oddly. Then when my playable sims returned from an outing, the adult is suddenly playable - and every last one of her bars is red red red.  No more vacation...hadn't monkeyed with the lot at that point so had no way to get her motives up fast enough to prevent her death.

Then I had a couple go on vacation with another couple from another household - these guests are like pets - you can't control their actions, but you can see their grayed out queue... The controllable female and the non-controllable female got stuck in the sauna (is there a problem with the sauna?) and the non-controllable male was stuck at the grand piano (playing for tips) - he wasn't even playing - he was just stuck motionless.  So the only sim I could actually control at that point was the male from the inviting couple - so the vacation ended right then and there.

I am afraid to try it again. What more can go wrong?

[ZiggyDoodle]

Answer is to barbecue your own food for filling up, I guess, if you don't carry meals in your inventory.

My Sims' inventories are not accessible when on vacation, which is too bad as most of them have at least one box of pizza stashed away.    Or is there some hack to allow this?

[jolrei]

My Sims' inventories are not accessible when on vacation, which is too bad as most of them have at least one box of pizza stashed away.    Or is there some hack to allow this?

Inventories in vacation hoods are somewhat selective - it appears to me that things you put in inventory from your main hood (i.e. re-nu-you flasks, cell phones, etc.) are not accessible from the inventory itself (although you can still use the cellphone).  Rocks and things you pick up that can be used "decoratively" in your main hood are not accessible for use in vacation hoods, although jewellery that you find while treasure hunting can be accessed by using the mirror.  Maps to secret locations in other holiday areas (i.e. you go to Twikii and find a map to bigfoot's place) are not accessible until you get to the proper holiday area.  Not sure why you couldn't carry food though.

[ZiggyDoodle]

They do carry food.  Lots of it.  But aren't allowed to pull it out and eat it.  Except for grilling fish (I've added lots of grills)

[jsalemi]

According to JMP, Macro/Eat will pull the food out on vacation lots.

[Ness]

As far as I can tell, nothing special happens when you get all the vacation memories filled.  Nothing at all.

[miramis]

As far as I can tell, nothing special happens when you get all the vacation memories filled.  Nothing at all.

Tell me it isn't true! 

[MutantBunny]

1) Dolpins controlthissim hack seems to be in conflict with the testingcheatsenabled. Anyone else have this?

2) Using the Sims2Ep6.exe and watching my internet usage EP appears to still phone homel. Is there a way to stop this short of disconnecting the modem?

[Ellatrue]

Firewall. Just don't allow the program to connect.

[MutantBunny]

*sigh* I supoose you're right...my ZoneAlarm doesn't liking my VIsta 64 so I guess it's back to the torrent locker......

[jsalemi]

1) Dolpins controlthissim hack seems to be in conflict with the testingcheatsenabled. Anyone else have this?

No problems with it here. And I think you're saying that you're seeing errors with the testing cheats enabled, and you think they're being caused by dolphin's hack.  Best bet is to post the error log that gets generated (the error message tells you its name and where to find it), and post it in a new thread in the "You broke it" forum.

[MutantBunny]

I can't get the testingcheat to enable at all--in a vac hood, simply won't--but it works fine without the hack in.The hack itselfvworks fine. So--you're is working ok?

[jsalemi]

Yup.  I play with testingcheats enabled all the time.

[MutantBunny]

Hack's fine, cheat's fine, operator is not fine....

[Ness]

As far as I can tell, nothing special happens when you get all the vacation memories filled.  Nothing at all.

Tell me it isn't true! 

Afraid I can't do that.    Surely someone else has done it and can confirm?  Anyone?

[Aggie]

Well, maybe it's something subtle that we can't actually see happening. Things like extending one's life or making one more popular with the locas or some crap like that.

[spaceface]

I forgot to mention the issue of child wants in my previous moan. Children persistently roll wants for A+ report cards whilst on vacation.

Regarding the lack of activities available for children, I have not yet tried to edit the existing hotel lots but plan to put some indoor recreation items such as Mah-Jongg tables and bookshelves in the hotel foyers. In addition, I will make sure that all children have handheld games in their inventories before leaving on vacation.

[Sivany]

I hate the lack of child related activities as well. I thought this would be the perfect expansion pack for them to introduce more child centered activities since that's what family holidays are usually all about. I know there's the pirate ship and the sandcastle building but that's only on Twikkii Island. I was hoping to see adventure playgrounds and treehouses (and digging, why can't they do that?) and other exciting things in the mountain location. I can live with the village location being more centered on adult sims, it seems a more calm and grown-up destination. Maybe I was just expecting too much

[J. M. Pescado]

I forgot to mention the issue of child wants in my previous moan. Children persistently roll wants for A+ report cards whilst on vacation.

Stomped by wfsanity now.

[Ellatrue]

Pure maxian laziness. My impression just from reading this thread, they seem to have dropped the ball with this EP in a lot of ways. Plus more obvious bugs than ever before, like the bugginess of the other vacationers, the food, the maid, the less-than-intuitive menus, etc. Did they even playtest it at ALL this time?

But seriously. Not bothering to make the child actions really takes the cake. They just didn't want to do the extra animations.

[jsalemi]

I'm beginning to agree with what someone posted earlier -- they don't seem to have integrated it very well with Seasons.  So far, there's been a raging thunderstorm come up on every community lot my sims visited, both on the island and on the asian vacation lots (haven't been to the mountains yet). Hmm, maybe TOO much like RL.  Though they did get one thing right -- one of my sims was swimming when it started to thunder, and she no sooner got out of the water than she got struck by lightning.   Of course, she didn't get a memory of being shocked, though she did get the 'had an accident' memory when she didn't make it to the bathroom on time.


Other silliness I've noticed: the paperboy comes every day to an owned vacation house.  Ok, not that bad, but the mail person also shows up, though he/she doesn't actually do anything (that I've seen so far, anyway).  And if you're on a beach lot, you can dig for treasure everywhere but on the actual beach -- you can only 'comb for seashells' on the beach.

[jolrei]

And if you're on a beach lot, you can dig for treasure everywhere but on the actual beach -- you can only 'comb for seashells' on the beach.

OK, but if you were a pirate burying your treasure, would you bury it right on the beach where the tide might come in and wash it away, fill the thing with water, and potentially soak your secret maps, or would you bury it a bit further inland?

With the weather problems reported, I'm generally glad that I'm running without seasons - smug bastard that I am, I rejoice that my sims get all good weather for their sunny beach vacations.  That almost compensates for the fact that (without NL) restaurants in my hotels don't work as anything but seating areas.

[KatEnigma]

Odd, I've had one hail storm and a couple rain showers, but nothing unusual.

[ZiggyDoodle]

I recall reading in the guide that the weather you will experience at your vacation spot is tied in to the existing weather in your hood, and that should be taken into account when planning a vacation.  Damned if I can recall the precise language, though, as my guide is at home and I'm here at work.    Something about seasonal quadrants..

Will quote the precise language when I get home, if someone doesn't beat me to it.

[jsalemi]

That would be interesting if true, since all the lots in my test hood are either in late autumn or early winter.  So if it would snow on the home lot, it translates as rain on the beach lot.  Makes a weird sort-of EAxian sense, I suppose.