BV patch is out

[Karen]

The BV patch is now available (http://thesims2.ea.com/update/)  The list of changes is not very long:

"Note: Not all fixes will take effect on existing The Sims 2 Bon Voyage saved games. If you have an existing lot, Sim, object or neighborhood that does not seem to be improved by this patch, we recommend that you replace the affected object, or create either a new family, lot or neighborhood, depending on what is affected by the bug.

Sims will no longer have the option to call vacation service NPCs after acquiring the business perk "Head for Numbers" which was causing a crash.
Sims will no longer have the option to "Call Taxi" using their cell phones if they have driven to the community lot with an own-able vehicle which was causing a crash.
If the Sim misses the shuttle, it will no longer return to a vacation lot without the Sim at the end of the vacation. Sometimes, this caused the vacation lot to become unusable.
Game will no longer create new vacation NPCs each time a lot is visited which was causing many issues due to character file overload. Any existing extra NPCs will be unlinked and their character files greatly reduced in size.
Periodic Events Controller will no longer loop twice per hour through each neighbor which was causing extreme lag on certain machines.
Autonomous water-balloon and snowball fights have been tuned so the interaction will occur less frequently"

Personally, I think I'll wait to install this until others have had a chance to check it out.

Karen

[Tigerlilley]

Pescado! Is anyone of those fixes going to fix my Permanate Sunburn issue that you thought was secretly going to be fixed in the next patch?

Any existing extra NPCs will be unlinked and their character files greatly reduced in size.

Hell no am I installing this until somebody awesome confirms its not a crock of shit.
Furthermore, can someone point me in the right direction of instructions on how to patch while running a no-cd crack? I'm very new to all of this...

[KatEnigma]

The BV patch is now available (http://thesims2.ea.com/update/)  The list of changes is not very long:

If the Sim misses the shuttle, it will no longer return to a vacation lot without the Sim at the end of the vacation. Sometimes, this caused the vacation lot to become unusable.

Well, since I had this happen just last night... GRRR. So I'll give it a shot. After I back up a little more.

What kills me is this part

"Note: Not all fixes will take effect on existing The Sims 2 Bon Voyage saved games. If you have an existing lot, Sim, object or neighborhood that does not seem to be improved by this patch, we recommend that you replace the affected object, or create either a new family, lot or neighborhood, depending on what is affected by the bug.

Sims will no longer have the option to call vacation service NPCs after acquiring the business perk "Head for Numbers" which was causing a crash.
Sims will no longer have the option to "Call Taxi" using their cell phones if they have driven to the community lot with an own-able vehicle which was causing a crash.

So delete the family, since we can't fix it, and we can't fix the problem, so we've just disabled the trigger?  WTG there Eaxis!

[Emma]

Thanks karen, not installing for the moment though. Like you, I am slightly wary of the stupid patches.

Periodic Events Controller will no longer loop twice per hour through each neighbor which was causing extreme lag on certain machines.

What the heck is that?

No mention of fixing the CAS jewelry or platinum pets...stupid EAxis.

[Tigerlilley]

They did say they'd be bringing out more than one patch...

Which for EA is a great idea.  Because then they can fuck up all the good work they did in the first patch with a borked second patch.

Like OFB.  Good times.

I have no idea why I still play this game

[Karen]

Sims will no longer have the option to call vacation service NPCs after acquiring the business perk "Head for Numbers" which was causing a crash.

Anybody care to translate that into English?  What kind of "vacation service NPCs" can be called on the phone anyway?  Has anybody actually seen a crash like this?

So delete the family, since we can't fix it, and we can't fix the problem, so we've just disabled the trigger?  WTG there Eaxis!

And of course they'll advise deleting the problem family *in-game*, leaving all kinds of garbage behind....

Karen

[KatEnigma]

Well,if you're on a vacation home lot, you can hire the same service NPC's.

Or.. maybe it's what's caused the weird room service bugs?

But no, I haven't seen any crashes like that. Of course,I haven't run a business in ages, either.

[rhodaloo]

I'm going to back up my game and wait a bit on more comments. 

The big question is:  Would it hurt anything to keep the antiredundancy mod in place?  Mr. Pescado?

[KatEnigma]

I've just backed up my folder, removed anitredundancy, counted my character files, and have fired up the game. Of course, I forgot to remove my hacks before patching (duh!) so I might need to reinstall if something goes haywire, before blaming the patch. 

[Emma]

Stupid EAxis can't even spell. In the site news box this jumped out at me:

Tuesday , October 09, 2007
Bon Voyage Patch Is Now Availble
We have released a patch for Bon Voyage that fixes a number of issues. Please review the patch notes before downloading.
:: Downlaod The Patch

Spot the dumb mistake? This doesn't inspire confidence in their competency to fix my game.....

[J. M. Pescado]

The big question is:  Would it hurt anything to keep the antiredundancy mod in place?  Mr. Pescado?

Antiredundancy will not be affected, as it covers other issues. Bigger sources of concern may involve this "unlinking" business, which sounds like a halfassed job that doesn't really clean up the mess and possibly makes a bigger mess if one didn't previously exist.

[Ness]

I think I'd rather trust Pescado's antiredundancy than a hack that promises to leave unlinked character files strewn about all over the place.

Antiredundancy was being used before BV, so I'm sure it will be safe to leave it there.  I certainly am!

[J. M. Pescado]

Death to all Nesses.

[ZiggyDoodle]

Anything coming from the people who gave us SecuROM is suspect.  Plus, the Pets patches fiasco still too fresh in my memory to even bother with more "fixes" from EAxis.   I'll stick with Pescado's awesomeness, thank you.

[J. M. Pescado]

Worth noting is that the patch will almost certainly break your noCD executables to some degree. Also, if someone has an objects.package to hackdiff, that would let us see the real list of changes.

[SimKat]

Eh and now people are complaing that the patch is mucking things up for them,getting errors now and some people saying thier game is even more messed up than before.
I remember the whole Seasons Patch fiasco ahh good times good times lol
I don't think Eaxis will ever get thier crap straight.
Go take a peek at the BV thread too funny.

[Zazazu]

Yeah. Seasons + OFB. And, sort of, Pets. They haven't patched a game well since....
*draws blank*

I'd love a fix to the periodic events thing-a-ma-jig, but for the rest.....do not want.

[KatEnigma]

  So far, no problems for me, even with forgetting to remove my hacks before installation.  And I run with testing cheats on, so I'd see errors.  What kind of things are being reported?

[ninefold]

Sims will no longer have the option to call vacation service NPCs after acquiring the business perk "Head for Numbers" which was causing a crash.

Anybody care to translate that into English?  What kind of "vacation service NPCs" can be called on the phone anyway?  Has anybody actually seen a crash like this?

This means that the Ninja, Tour Guides, and Charlatans could be called on the telephone, pre-patch, if your OFB sim had the Head for Numbers perk.  One of my sims did have this perk and I could see about 14 charlatans, 15 ninja, etc that I could call.  I never called them  though as I knew they were not real NPC's and thus could not be interacted with normally as a townie could be.  But apparently games crashed if you decided to go ahead and call one of these "vacation service NPC's".

[Eletro DJ]

Somebody knows which probable bugs that it came with patch?

[Tigerlilley]

KatEnigma: Nothing of interest yet.  Apprently some people were having errors while either installing / downloading the patch.

Eletro DJ: What? Speaka da english.  Just out of interest is your name meant to be "Electro DJ"?

[phyllis_p]

KatEnigma: Nothing of interest yet.  Apprently some people were having errors while either installing / downloading the patch.

Eletro DJ: What? Speaka da english.  Just out of interest is your name meant to be "Electro DJ"? Just wondering.

According to his profile, our friend is from Brazil.  According to Babelfish, "eletro" in Portuguese translates to "electro" in English.

[Tigerlilley]

Ahh my mistake.
I apologise.

[KatEnigma]

Hmmm.... unless I've gone blind, the patch seems to have gone missing from the downloads page. 

[lovesimsKL]

I think I'm going to sit this patch out for a bit. No need to screw up the game anymore   I'm still trying to deal with this SecuROM garbage.