Bon Voyage dissatisfaction

[vcline]

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..

I have the guide right here, and it is the seasonal quadrants that are matched.  I.e. if you are in quadrant 3 at home, and it's fall, then your vacation site will also be in quadrant 3.  That would be summer for Twikkii Island (summer, summer, summer, summer), fall for Takemizu Village (spring, spring, fall, fall) and winter for Three Lakes (fall, fall, winter, winter).

[ZiggyDoodle]

Since I typed it before checking in, here's the precise quote (with error) from the Guide:

"If you have Sims 2 Seasons installed, you may want to consider the current season at your Sim's vacation destination.

"When Sims travel, the destination is in the same seasonal quadrant (1-4) as their home lot.  If, therefore, a Sim's home lot is in the third season of its cycle, any vacation destination your Sims visit will also be in its third quadrant.

"This matters because of seasonal effects and weather.  Because each season can influence a Sim's relationships, needs, and skills, it pays to visit a destination in a season that'll affect your Sims is [sic] some advantageous way.  For example, if a budding romantic couple is going away to solidify their relationship, they should travel somewhere during the destination's spring season, because romantic socials and relationships are boosted.

"As for the weather, this strategic effect isn't as huge, but your Sims might not want to visit the islands during the rainy seasons (spring/fall).

"You can, of course, change any vacation destination's seasonal progression in the Neighborhood view.""

[spaceface]

People have posted about their playable sims motives decaying on vacation with no visible effect. I am having problems however with the guests.

I am playing a family of 4 (2 elder males, 1 elder female and 1 servo) who have taken 2 guests (1 servo and one adult male werewolf) along on vacation. They have a vacation house but also stay at some of the resorts so that they can get the appropriate vacation memories.

The servo guest remained behind at a community lot after everyone else had walked home. His energy was low, and it just got lower until it bottomed out. Nothing happened, and I had no more playables on the lot. I had to use maxmotives to get his motives up, then he too walked home.

Also, when I checked them all into a hotel for a night the servo guest did not seem to be able to recharge, nor did he autonomously sleep or nap. He repeatedly tried recharging for a second and then stopped. At least the werewolf guest looked after himself autonomously, ate food when room service was delivered and took baths and so on.

Back at the house, both the servo and the werewolf turned into idiots, who just stood there and did nothing while their motives decayed. They did not respond when sims tried to talk to them. I used moveobjects to move the werewolf (who was standing giggling to himself and getting hungrier and hungrier) out of the bathroom so the other sims could use it, then he seemed fine after that.

[Zazazu]

Small non-immersion type gripe. Non-playables do not autonomously swim in the ocean. I've played my ticket-beach lot for three sim weeks. Not one visitor has swum. They sift the sand, they build oodles of castles, dance, do tai chi (thanks to one of the twins teaching a frequent customer), hang out in the hottub, romance, fight, pass out and die from heat stroke...no swimming.

[dream_operator]

I haven't had any problems with the hotels yet, though they do lag because of all the sims on them.  Now granted I haven't taken a big family to a hotel yet, but this is what happened when I ordered roomservice.  The bellhop placed the tray on the edge of the table and both sims could eat at the table next to the tray.  I haven't had any problems with the hotel maids either. 

Things I have noticed running a hack-free game.  Not only is the "Primp" option gone, but the "Lick Clean" option now shows up for all my sims regardless of how neat they are.  Neater sims that wouldn't have the option before can't lick their plates clean though.  Also when putting jewelry on a sim in CAS, when I wanted to remove earrings the sim wouldn't get updated so I had to finish the sim and then bring her back into CAS to see if the jewelry had actually been removed or not. 

Dream

[neriana]

Edited because I had a hack I didn't realize I had. I really need to stop posting in the middle of the night.

However, this is still relevant:

Also, has anyone else noticed the fruit punch keg advertising a lot more? I've had a keg in my Sims' Greek house for 4 generations, and I've never had problems with it before. Tonight, everyone obsessed over it so much that I had to move it to the shed of items no one may use along with the bubble blower and remote control car.

[spaceface]

Grr. Some furnishings in premade hotels are not available in buy mode. I thought I might use the eyedropper function to duplicate some things, but that does not work. I have not yet tried going in via the neighborhood view though.

[Emma]

Grr. Some furnishings in premade hotels are not available in buy mode. I thought I might use the eyedropper function to duplicate some things, but that does not work. I have not yet tried going in via the neighborhood view though.

Try picking up the item in buy mode then pressing shift while placing it. Hopefully it will duplicate the item.

[Havelock]

There is a lot wrong with the gameplay. Sims get hit by Lightning Strikes to often when dig for Treasure, or medidate at the Zengarden, or walk on the Lot. To mutch Rain, Hailstorms and Lightnig Strikes  in Takemitzu Village.
Vacationguests could not sleep in Beds or nap on Couches. As mentioned before they could not swim in the Ocean.
Pet Cheats work on Vacationguests !? What have they programmed ?
Hotels with a Restaurant dont get a Cook on the  Restaurant Stove.

[sloppyhousewife]

Hotels with a Restaurant dont get a Cook on the  Restaurant Stove.

Non-awesome or outdated hack perhaps? My cook shows up alright (in the Flaming Dragon Hotel, that is - not been in another hotel with restaurant so far)

[Havelock]

Hmmm. Only nonawesome is plausible, Awesome are most recent. Thx sloppyhousewife.

[spaceface]

Try picking up the item in buy mode then pressing shift while placing it. Hopefully it will duplicate the item.

The level of co-ordination required to do this may be too much for me, but I will try, thanks.

Re not being able to sleep in hotels, I noticed that sometimes the action to ''check in'' drops from the queue, and then the sims cannot sleep in the beds until I queue the check in again.

[morriganrant]

Hmmm. Only nonawesome is plausible, Awesome are most recent. Thx sloppyhousewife.

How many spaces are in front of the stove? If there are not enough spaces the chef will not spawn because he does not have room to. The food still showed fine but there was not a visual cook "cooking" it. The cooks do not actually cook in the game, the food is merely spawned. For another report of an invisible chef go to this thread:
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,9276.0.html

[laylei]

The lack of dancing is bothering me. Only one of my sims have been able to learn any of the local dances- the Traveller daughter, and that was by luck. They keep spinning up wants to learn the dances, but none of the locals will dance with them, or do tai chi. I can barely even get them to do the gestures! No one has fully mastered a gesture yet.

The lack of kid actions is also annoying. It was okay on the island, because Tina (the Travellers are my test family) could swim, and comb for shells, etc. But in the mountains, she's got nothing to do. It just seems lazy- they had so much potential, but no.

[J. M. Pescado]

I am uncertain how this differs from real life.

[neriana]

When I was a kid, I loved camping and hated going to the beach. There's so much to do when camping. However, it's mostly exploration and imagination, which unfortunately EAxis didn't encode in any meaningful way.

[Emma]

I have decided not to let my sims travel to vacation community lots together as all they do is interact with each other! Trying to leave them to do autonoumous stuff so the locals will teach them gestures isn't working. I am wondering if it is ACR, but although the ACR plant isn't on-lot (I haven't spawned one) they are still doing ACR actions, even woohooing on the park bench with sims being shocked at their nakedness!

I am sick of it always pissing it down with rain too.

[witch]

You're right, for learning it seems better to take just one sim on vacation. I changed the Eastern place to mostly summer I think, just to stop the eternal rain.

Is that what English holidays are like Emma?

[Emma]

Yes it is witch. I need a holiday in the sun, dammit!

Even the Twikki place rains (and hails!) a lot too. That place is supposed to be eternal summer! Stupid game. Pescado would love it though, no sun in my game.

[purplehaze]

Has anyone else adopted Big Foot? I have, and he's not difficult to play at all. In fact, he's a better parent to the tots then their biological parents. The problem is that he's acting more like a servo than a playable sim. He is constantly cooking meals, even when his hunger bar is full. I have 'have a leftover' installed, but he doesn't get the left-overs. He cooks constantly. Is this normal game play?

(all awesomeness is updated as well as the few 'almost' awesome mods)

[Sleepycat]

I have decided not to let my sims travel to vacation community lots together as all they do is interact with each other! Trying to leave them to do autonoumous stuff so the locals will teach them gestures isn't working. I am wondering if it is ACR, but although the ACR plant isn't on-lot (I haven't spawned one) they are still doing ACR actions, even woohooing on the park bench with sims being shocked at their nakedness!

I am sick of it always pissing it down with rain too.

the ACR adjuster is only needed on-lot for teens and elders to do ACR actions, adults don't need it.

[jolrei]

Not so much a source of dissatisfaction, but more a bit of bemusement, but I've noticed that if I have one sim family on holiday, and then go back to the main hood and play another family, the sims on holiday seem to walk past.  This seems odd, considering that the game implies that sims need to fly away some distance to get to the holiday hood, but it's probably completely in keeping with EA's 'logic'.

[jsalemi]

Sounds like possibly a hack/mod conflict to me.

[KatEnigma]

It's a shame, because there are some things I really like about BV - but seriously, what is so difficult about hiring a playtester or two?

They want ones with degrees and playtesting experience and only want to pay them $10/hour in Redwood City. The average bored housewife or poor college student in the Bay Area would make more working at WALMART than playtesting for Eaxis. I think this is reflected in the quality of the work. 

I only tried one restaurant, and couldn't get a cook either. I haven't tried again since updating my hacks, though.

ETA: I almost forgot. I'm also having problems with Bigfoot. First it was a BYU problem, then it was walking to lots. If I had him initialize it, he'd leave, but the rest of the family would drop it from their queue. If someone else initialized it, they'd leave, but he'd get stuck at home.  I got tired of having to force off-world errors to bring them back, so Bigfoot got left out of future excursions, and when they returned home, he had to move out. 

[Zazazu]

I have decided not to let my sims travel to vacation community lots together as all they do is interact with each other! Trying to leave them to do autonoumous stuff so the locals will teach them gestures isn't working. I am wondering if it is ACR, but although the ACR plant isn't on-lot (I haven't spawned one) they are still doing ACR actions, even woohooing on the park bench with sims being shocked at their nakedness!

Are you using the Beta version of ACR? I've noticed that, since it, my sims can't keep their hands off each other for a moment. I actually had to turn ACR autonomy down so that Stella (the live-in of Kennedy--one of the twins of the first Queen's Cove settler) wouldn't starve herself to death during her pregnancy for wanting to make out with her boyfriend. Not that this is a bad thing in general, but it would definitely get in the way on vacation.

I have moved in Bigfoot, but he only stayed for around 5 minutes. I moved him off into his own home in a forest by the mountain range. He, in his ninja garb, is the all-knowing sim of Queen's Cove, in the tradition of the All Knowing Mime^tm, he is the All Knowing Ninja^tm. Or something, I haven't decided on his official title. He visits the public beach lot and the convenience store quite a bit and has never been a problem, unlike a few of the other beachgoers (Stella especially, there's four sims she attacks on sight now).