Free Time Problem - "Fake" Permanent Platinum

[Baytor]

Hi there, sorry for making my first post a help request, but I've encountered a problem that I just can't solve by myself. I'm also sorry if this is a bit too wordy, I'm just trying to be precise.


So here's what happened:

A teenage Sim of mine was platinum for a while, so I decided to send him off to college and ever since then, his aspiration hasn't decayed. He remains platinum, no matter what I do. This would be annoying enough, but he doesn't even get platinum benefits. His regular needs decay at normal speed and when he tries to use aspiration rewards, it ALWAYS results in the worst possible outcome.

Here's what I tried to fix it:

aspirationLevel cheat - I tried this with all the possible levels and it's always the same: The new aspiration level does appear on the meter, but without any (positive) effects and it never decays either.

That orb reward thing - I let him get the Grilled Cheese aspiration, which actually worked. His aspiration level dropped, started to decay as usual again and rewards could be used, too, but as soon as I changed the aspiration back to Knowledge, the problems returned as well.

Additional info:

I have all the expansions, except for the stuff packs, I don't use any global hacks, or any external mod programs and this is literally the only problem I've experienced so far. Also, I'm not really sure if this is actually Free Time related, but I've never encountered this issue prior to that expansion.

So, I'm out of ideas and any kind of help would be greatly appreciated.

[caffeinated.joy]

We like it when people give us informative requests for help. After all of the "my game is broke, please help" type of posts, this is wonderful.

On to your problem. If you download houses, it's possible you've downloaded and installed a hack without your knowledge (often these are included in the house file without the creator's knowledge as well). You can do a few things I can think of, off the top of your head.

Go into your My Documents/EA Games/The Sims 2 folder and delete the following:

Groups.cache
Accessories.cache
cigen.package

Any of these three can become corrupt over time and do weird things to your game. When you start the game again, clean copies will be regenerated, so they're always safe to delete.

Pull your downloads folder out and try running your game without it. If your game runs fine, then you've got something in your cc that's messing up your game.

[Baytor]

Thanks for the suggestions, but sadly, none of them worked. I didn't actually have many custom downloads in the first place, since I've just recently gotten back into the game again. I only had a few custom meshes and a bunch of recolors, no houses, or mods.

However, I've fiddled around with the Sim a bit more and now I'm pretty convinced that it's a Free Time bug afterall. I don't know what caused it in the first place, but I discovered that I can get things back to normal by letting my Fake Plat Sim use the orb to get Grilled Cheese, then reach Gold and then pick a regular aspiration again, but without taking any of those Lifetime Aspiration Benefits. As soon as I make use of those, the fake permanent platinum returns. It works every time, so I assume it's a bug and not just some random glitch.

Other Sims can get those benefits without any problems, by the way. Maybe this only occurs on university lots, or is related to something else entirely.

Anyway, I'll take a look around, if anyone else is experiencing this problem. Again, thanks for your help.

[ancienthighway]

FreeTime introduced another way for sims to reach Perma-plat, the Lifetime Aspirations.  Get all 16 and there's the plat.  There was nothing more frustrating for me than to have one of my kids age to teen and immediately hit perma-plat.  Unlike the LTW perma-plat, the LTA perma-plat can't be reset through various hacks.  

However Dizzy in his FT spiral collection at The Laden Swallow has a mod, Perma-gold, which will make both LTW and LTA perma-plats, perma-gold instead.  Needs play into the factor again.  No more free lunch with promotions every day.  Those sims are fun to play again.