FreeTime Patch is Out! *EA removed patch from site*

[Tenshii~Akari]

No prob, NeeCee.  :lol:  I just thought EA screwed the pooch as big as last time.  It never fails.  :smile bi:

[KateTheSuperKat]

Sure, why'd they even try to get us a decent patch?

Anyway, other than the fact it reset the game, the patch is working fine for me.

[Tenshii~Akari]

Tenshii! what madness is this you speak of?!! Don't you understand? EA does thorough testing, they know exactly how short-sighted, shallow, and herd-beast-like their consumer-base is!!

If that's the case... there's still room for some improvement.  :lol:  I don't settle for half-@$$ery if I know the people are capable of doing better than what they do at the moment.  Despite the company's shiestiness, they do have some great programmers there, and if it wasn't for the quick-shifting deadline bumps, I'm sure the quality of the game would be better.  (i.e. less potential for bugs).  I'm sure if they pulled a Nintendo, they'd definitely get more out of it.  

But then again, what does a big company like EA care about us?  If it weren't for the heads of EA, we'd have what we were originally supposed to have in the first place, right?  :tongue3:  

(... yeah, I'm pretty cynical right now.  Sorry for those who feel the sting.  It happens when I get "burned" sometimes, and not by anyone in this thread, though... :?)

[freshsfs2003]

They don't get completely reset - what lewis probably meant was that the sims normally at work would end up back home, and consequently lose a day's work (if you have holiday time you use up one of those days). This is why I keep Squinge's skip-school-no-grade-loss in my game I do believe JM has a fix in his debugger for work performance

I've played with the patch installed and no problems, so for what it does fix, I'll keep it But then, I seem to be lucky with things like patches and securom... :angel:

I'll tell the truth! The patch only resets the lot by bring sims home from work and stopping all actions the sims where doing. Someone earlier asked why didn't they fix those bloody phone calls? I already hate when chatting sims call my other sims all the time. It angers me. I minimize the amounts of phones in my sims' houses because I can't stand the ringing. ...And then here comes FreeTime!

[Sam the T-man]

Interestingly enough, the patch has only been pulled from the main site. It's still up at the official UK site :dontknow:

[Cleo999]

It''s still up at the official Italian site as well - but then ... they are quite slow in updating the site ...

[JeffXJ9]

so the first patch i installed has Bugs in it? o_O;

[jinyc]

The patch reset my Sims and CC but that was okay (seemingly). The weirdest effect was a car that simply disappeared (and replaced) from a previous gameplay reappeared on the lot.

I am now sitting with this evil patch in game. I am too exhausted to re-install. Hurry up Maxis Morons! Fix what you fixed/broke/fixed/broke/fixed/broke...YIKES!

[CynicalSim]

Wanna hear something really stupid?  I always back up before doing anything at all with my game.  Well, I was very distracted and not thinking and installed the patch without backing up.  All my custom content is really funky looking now with what looks like writing and weird patterns.  Ugh.  Why wasn't I thinking?

[PegasusDiana]

I downloaded the patch but was too tired to install it, so I left it sitting on the desktop to install the next day and forgot about it. Still haven't installed it. After reading this I'm glad it's still sitting there waiting for me to install, now it's going into the recycling bin.

[Tomkat]

Okay...i fell for this patch too
I NEVER EVER download patches, since they have only EVER damaged my game, but with this one i reckoned... since FT is (at that time anyway) the last EP, then there wont be any more patches on (the next) EPs...so ill probably have to get this...

mistake... and unlike people that dont know what the patch does... ive had some serious issues come up that havent EVER happened to me before... including:

*households dont save correctly. when you leave a house to go to the neighbourhood, and click save at the prompt, it "saves" but when you go into that house again you lost everything since your last manual save.

*very slow loads on houses made after the patch. Since ive bought my new gaming PC loads are a breeze... even on huge houses, but post-patch houses, even smaller than the pre-patch ones, take 3 mins + to load, not 10 secs like normal houses. (i know thats still fast, but thats not the point)

*game crashes more

*game "freezes", and the image "scrambles".  you have to restart the pc manually. and of course you didnt save

*no one ages properly.  There are a ton of days added to lives, and you have to use simpe to reduce them to normal.

thats just what happened to me so far. im sure there are more horrors i havent experienced yet!

[jinyc]

Tomkat, wow! I agree, for some odd reason the game is taking much longer to load. I have played three individual houses post patch D/L so I have gone back to see if saving was flummoxed. I did have one major game crash that was frightening. The game froze and I heard wierd "banging" noises in the background. I finally had to force close the game and it wasn't easy. When I went back to that lot it opened where it had been last manually saved (I still use Monique's "Save Game" reminder mod).

I haven't (yet) noticed a problem with aging. When I had the atomic crash I was having a birthday party for two kids. The game crashed while the party was in progress. The next time I just used the cake and skipped a party and all went well.

I have had a problem since BV where the lot freezes momentarily whenever I have a Sim use a car, leaving for school or work and also when coming home. Now the lot freezes for a minute or more whenever a car is used (actually, this problem may have become more pronounced after adding the original installation of FT; I am not sure).

[Sam the T-man]

I've noticed that freeze with cars too. One problem I'm having is that, despite using my new monster PC (runs a lot faster than my laptop), big lots take forever to load, to the point where it doesn't appear to be making progress :? This is without the patch though, haven't installed it on this one, and don't fancy taking the chance either

That "banging" noise you describe could be the music looping like a stuck record. That's the first thing I get that warns me the game is about to crash, and 99 times out of 100 I'm right.

[jinyc]

Sadie, I think with the patch installed the car freeze has been worse.

Big lots take a bit longer to load. Pre-patch my game took about 7 or 8 minutes from start up to neighborhood screen. Entering a lot took about 2 to 3 minutes more. Now it takes almost 15 minutes for the same play. I have loads of D/Ls (of course). At this time I have 4.4 GIGS of D/Ls!

My PC is far from anemic. It is 4.6 GHZ, 2 Gigs of RAM, ATI 1650 Pro. All I can say is GRRRRRRR!

[Bev in NY]

Well i'm not sure if the patch made it worse or not....or the game FT itself...but i have noticed the game doing the few second freeze some with the cars but alot longer freeze when changing seasons especially winter and when wolves come on lot...and it gets worse as i play longer...i don't have alot of CC maybe a gig...not even 3,000 things....but i do have the patch in my game, and when a new one comes out will it just overwrite this one or will i have to uninstall FT ?