Good question!

If not, great! If so, then we'll need to figure out what to use to illuminate vamp lairs.

P.S. I used Clean Installer to track down Career objects, and found some disguised as Food (leaving those in hasn't caused issues) and some in my Downloads/Hacks folder (not redlined, but stuck in there because the objects were cheats or modifications anyway) and those also are still okay in my game. Only stuff that had a job name or description and the Career tag were set OFF, and the annoying message went away. Thank you again.

Wild hairy guess: did you replace Maxis default skins and eyes with custom content default overrides?

I don't know if this would cause the problem as described, but if you did replace defaults and then removed CC, that might be what happened.

Experts? What say you?

Suspected culprits identified elsewhere: Numenor's Chimera light's .nlo file, Gunmod's lighting hacks, commlightson hack and poollightsfix hack.

Or a crappy NVidia graphics card / too recent driver being naughty.

And, as BBB said, Petzoneoneone is borked big time. Gee, sounds like Return of the B@--@-- Undead Son of Unleashed, which borkified my game well and truly during Sims 1.

So, in an attempt to fix the fracking lights, I removed the Chimera lights and .nlo, that didn't fix the problem. Numenor is cleared.

Gunmod's hacks: GoBo / disco lights didn't work BEFORE installing these mods, so I'm leaving it all alone for now.

commlightson -- already removed on advice from MATY and elsewhere

poollightsfix -- just removed it, as I rarely bother with pools anymore, and will report back if it fixes the issue.

I get tired of them pitching a fit when another sim is in their way and there's room to walk around them or pitching a fit in a room with seven computers and five sims, to the point where they get up from a computer desk to yell at another sim because they want to turn the computer off.

Some autonomous bathroom behavior would be nice for sims out of diapers. How often do adults wet themselves, anyway?

Seasons seems very Vacation-esque to me. Vacation added new destinations with hot or snowy terrains, and Seasons adds a new destination but the option to have hot or rainy or autumnal or snowy interactive environments. Similar enough that I don't want a Vacation EP on top of this one. I'll make my own Vacation areas in subhoods instead. (Actually, hated Vac because it was swarming with annoying child sims, who were next to useless in sims 1, and without build/buy cheat tool, would have gone bonkers on Vac lots trying to use them as is. The mascots were even more annoying than Uni mascots, too.)

I am one of those folks who liked superstar (sorry) but part of that was covered with glamorous items in GL. I like the idea of adding a fame track, but there are more creative / fame tracks than just acting, music and fashion. Famous artists, news anchors / TV stars, authors, activists (Save the Llamas! Suffrage for Aliens! Vampire Rights! lol), serial killers (won't ever happen, but Maxis could sugarcoat this as a Bonnie and Clyde type of super Criminal mastemind fame / notoriety track), cult leaders (part of a career track, true, but underexplored...imagine a commune of tracksuit wearing, trainer-clad Scientologist types worshipping aliens due to arrive on the next comet but preparing to drink the KoolAid if the aliens don't show), performance artists (sims walking around with cans of Spam on their heads, spouting angry free verse in simlish comes to mind), etc.

Both fame and notoriety could be explored, so you could choose to live an ordinary life, or go to either extreme in Simland. Positive fame track would have pitfalls like in Superstar (paparazzi rooting through garbage, taking bad candid photos, printing gossip in newspaper (actually could make newspaper useful, and I hope weather reports are bundled into paper with new EP for poor sims), whereas notoriety could have hidden perks (being rewarded for being a grouchy personality, faster money earning, immediate (trembling!) deference and service from service personnel when shopping or dining, as if sim was a mob boss, etc.)

As far as EPs duplicated from Sims 1, I had to refresh my memory quickly. (Livin' Large, House Party, Hot Date, Vacation, Unleashed, Superstar and Makin' Magic, if anyone else needs a refresher. My memory is swiss cheese lately.) I honestly don't recall what functionality LL added to the game because I bought TS1base and HD at the same time, then DDeluxe and every EP through SS, then MM (at which point I lost interest after three weeks of play).

I think HP has been bundled into the S2 base game and Uni, and hacks apparently exist that make community lot parties possible. It might be nice to make that functionality available officially, or to designate certain lots as Festival lots, where the atmosphere is always rather Mardi Gras / Festival / New Year's Eve in nature. More social interaction success, more bad behaviors, you name it. Themes could be assigned to lots so that Sims visiting lots like Londoste, the fancy restaurant, have to wear formal attire (which would make it actually useful in the game). No formals in your wardrobe? So sorry, go buy one and come back. No tie, no Lobster Thermidore for you. Likewise, gyms would require gym clothes automagically (unless they had a pool, in which case that area would be coded for swimsuits). Beach lots or public pools would require swimsuits.

Hot Date is, as noted, bundled into the new Nightlife. Unleashed is, duh, Pets. OFB duplicates a lot of CC community lot concepts explored in Sims 1 but expands upon them in a new, improved way. I already noted that I think Seasons is Vacation lite in some ways, and it ties in with the Holiday stuff pack. Vacation in the original game was child-oriented, and Family Fun already covered the crapola aspect for build/buy child needs.

I suspect that's why people keep saying MM and SS in these redundant poll-type threads. It hasn't been covered yet like the other Sims1 EPs.

I'd like it to be easier to bin hair and clothes in-game.

I'd like toddlers and elders to be less useless in the game. Why would anyone want to turn aging on for Sims they care about if their gameplay options are diminished? Let elders work, have romances, have special perks, and a useful, non-fugly wardrobe. Make it easier to correct Maxis genetic horrors on toddlers and babies in-game. And Maxis babies are awfully quiet in my game, never crying, bever experiencing needs failure, complacent about being awakened every five minutes by family members, etc. Maybe my Sim parents are godlike natural parents, but real babies cry. A lot. And guessing what the crying means is all part of the joy of childcare. Childcare services that issued warnings pre-snatch, giving Sims a chance to fix neglect states in the household, or only snatched the neglected child(ren) while ignoring the non-neglected would be swell. No slacker nannies eating all the food, playing solitaire, watching TV, pulling puerile pranks, being abrasive in interactions they initiate (sod off and go watch the kid like you were paid to do, already) and ignoring the kids, thanks. Maybe that's just my game.

Being able to walk across the street to visit neighbors within view would be awesome. They are probably saving that for Sims 3.

I'd like other animals, too, namely the ferrets they already have the mesh for. Ferrets are awesome pets. They are like a compromise between dogs and cats and smaller animals like guinea pigs. They eat catfood, play with cat toys, use litter pans, live in large cages like birds or womrats, and can be taught tricks like dogs, wear harnesses, walk on leashes, and travel around in backpacks and purses and carriers like "Designer Dogs" (if one desires). The downside is that some people don't like their scent (neglible if they are cared for), they steal (imagine the possibilities if your Sim ferret started hiding objects under the couch in the game..."Sorry, you can't drive downtown, you forgot to put the ferret up last night and your keys are under the sofa. Go get them and then you can go."), they climb, they are funny to watch when they play (dancing, play-wrestling, rolling over and general spazziness are the norm), and some do bite if improperly socialized. Fail to train your ferret and you'll get bitten, train him or her well and you can go walkies and play with them. To make it more fair, since ferrets combine a lot of cat/dog behaviors, maybe Simferrets couldn't hold jobs like dogs or cats, or breed litters (most are sold fixed in the US). For more SimFerts in your family, you have to buy them.

Ability to change stupid Aspirations. Grilled cheese my ass. I had a diligent, scientifically-minded, socially adept, popular, platinum aspiration, high influence pointed Biology major, and her lifelong dream was to gorge on dairy products. As if.

Also agree that there should only be one mayor, one Captain Hero (or Noble Heroine) per game hood. For mayors, maybe there could be some way to acknowledge equally qualified candidates, pretend there's been a vote, and then (sado)randomly assign a winner or let the winner be chosen by virtue of who has more skills, or more friends, or the highest cumulative LTR scores among their associates.

The fantasy characters are my least favourite aspects (vampires, werewolves, plant people, whatever!), but it does imply that a future EP will have other magical critters or beings, and perhaps that is when MM will be duplicated. If ever.

I've seen players ask for past Sims ages and future Sims ages elsewhere, and that might be interesting. You could opt to start a hood 100 Sim years in the past and grow it, much like a successful SimCity development, 100 Sim years intop the future. Or, more likely and perhaps better, just have separate hoods for those eras. The Medieval furniture would suddenly make a little sense. A kitschy 1950's Sim future with flying cars, rounded plexiglass domed houses and food replicators and clones and metallic outfits might be hilarious. Using collections, you could allow or disallow certain types of content in each hood, meaning no Townie Goopies walking by in neon puffer jackets and surfer shorts in 19th century Simville.

Apartments hav been noted--the Sim Bin now allows families with different surnames in the same lot, and Myne doors allow locking a keyholders, so, technically, you could have lots dedicated to duplexes and individual housing. Downside being that the sims still act as a family unit and screech if denied goodies in inaccessible areas and try to use each other's facilities. Hacks get around this, but it's hard to create the illusion without hacks. "Highrises" can be built with Maxis cheats, but building higher than 5 floors can cause bugginess. It's possible, but not easy to play. True basements would be groovy, too. Lairs / dens for vamps and weres, functional storage for Sims stuff like outgrown baby furniture (I have an attic in one house, so, as my sims aren't sure they are having another baby yet, they have stored the baby stuff rather than selling it back immediately). With weather effects, basements would be protection from windstorms/hail, power outages would require going down there to flick the power back on, plumbing leaks and floods could reduce the value of the property (you have to check the basement once in a while to prevent this), you can store gardening supplies / pantry stuff / pet stuff down there, etc. Not plausible it will be done, but we're just free-associating ideas here, right?

More stability. If your computer has the specs required, the game runs. No problems. No patches that farq the game up worse than before you patched. I read a rumour that some of the issues experienced with Pets is because it and Seasons were supposed to be one EP originally, and some coding intended for Seasons got in, and some coding meant for Pets got left out. It was too big fopr one EP, but too small for two individual EPs, so they piled on other functionalities and released them quickly, within a shorter interval and at unusual times of the year (Pets near the holidays makes sense, Seasons in Feb/March is a bit weird). This may all be completely wrong, but it was interesting to me.

Less trendiness in Maxis clothing / items (and, as seen in SS, characters) and more references to pop culture that make sense internationally. I think worldwide the Marilyn SS made more sense than the Avril and Christina SSs. Andy Warhol Sim made me ecstatically happy, though.

No stupid Maxis headgear / outfits like knight suits, bunny suits, gorilla suits, Riddick goggles, Santa hats (hello, not all of the world celebrates Christmas, and Christmas isn't snowy in Australia, etc.), or they should be hide-able in-game if the user hates them. When you fire up CAS, maybe you can get the option to have a mannequin try on the default outfits and choose to hide the crappy ones, and this could be a separate function from creating Sims. Hidden or transferred-from-normal-category crap would be moved to a bin like custom hair, and you could opt, when creating Sims, not to open that bin section. Would work sort of like collections do. So if you're looking at everyday outfits, no three pages of rabbit suits, and if you are looking at brown hair, no three pages of open and closed knight helmets. Ugh. That's not even quirky-funny, it's just being weird for the sake of being weird.

Like a poster on another forum said: "Remembered one more thing I wish from new add-ons: common sense. Even if wee little bit, such as just one mayor per city, or money as a turn-on, or that upbringing and environment actually affected development of personality, and more variety in personalities in general would be a nice thing."

Forgot to mention that. Yes, if you are going to have turn-ons and turn-offs, why aren't any of them personality-related? And if you go to the trouble of having zodiac signs, add those in as possible turn-ons. Playfulness / seriousness as a turn-on or -off. Agree about money. Having a job could be a turn-on, making it more useful not to have independently wealthy motherloded Sims lazing about jobless. Having or not having kids. Having or not having a diploma. Having or not having pets. Owning or not owning a business. Being or not being a service NPC. Age groups that appeal or don't appeal to target sims. Eye colour turn-ons and -offs, much like hair colours. Certain skills could be turn ons (like logic or creativity points) or turn offs. Some Sims will like sporty Body point sims and others will like Logical bookish Sims. Sims with similar aspirations might find that more attractive than not, or opposites might attract. Those who don't have the relevant EPs don't get those options. Give a choice of three each, rather than two and one. Hats and glasses are useless, as those can be altered in-game with a mirror. Formal wear, underwear and swim-wear are likewise useless as attractions because some creators can't bin their crap properly and there are few opportunities for unattached Sims to see each other in formal wear or swim-wear or underwear and this trigger attraction. Hair can be, too, but generally it makes more sense to change styles within the same colour bin, whereas hats, especially with Seasons hats coming, are probably going to fark up the attraction coding.

EDITED TO ADD: If you're going to use the groovy Sixties-Seventies social shortcut of "What's your sign?" then at least do elementary research about what signs are actually supposed to be compatible. The game is wrong, wrong, wrong, and learning the new wrong system is annoying, so I don't. Also, in real life, if astrology has any merit at all, your basic sun sign is the least helpful indicator of actual personality likelihoods, and it gets really titchy and complicated with other planets brought into the mix, and rising signs and so forth, so, on the whole, a useless system overall in the game, but moreso if they can't even get the basic stereotypical wisdom (about which signs get along and which don't) correct.

Attraction coding seems, for the most part, totally irrelevant in my game as to whether or not two Sims dig each other or hate each other at first sight. It could be made more useful.

I also hate the 25 points total personality coding / zodiac crap. I should be able to make Sims with more or fewer points as I see fit. I suspect this was done to thwart Perfect Sim personality reversal cheats from sims 1, where you could make a pointfree Sim and then reverse the polarity of the personality points to cheat your way to a personality maxxed Sim. You can still hack this if desired, so making us have to use 25 points exactly is a pain in the rear.

When you are distracted while driving through the Historical District and wishing that those stairs, windows, shutters, columns, porches, wrought iron details, archways, cupolas, doors, gates, stonework, curved stairs, widow's walks, ivy, live oaks with Spanish moss, azalea bushes, seagrass, tabby stucco walls or special grey-red brick walls were available in game.

And then you plot on how to use existing in-game objects to simulate the look anyway.

And manage not to run any red lights. :-P

When you are about to chortle "Woo Hoo!" because something good has just happened, you worry that people will think you are talking about pixel people sex.

You are annoyed that you have to buy insurance and gasoline, and and have to wash your car, and anything other than off street driveway parking requires a More Awesome Than You hack fest.

You get hungry when your Sims do, and take bathroom breaks when they look shifty and frantic and run to the Sim loo. Since your Sims get hungry approximately 40 times an hour, soon you need a fat mesh for yourself :snorting: and wish that treadmilling for an hour or two would take care of it.

When on a date, you avoid sweet little old ladies in hats, fearing assault and battery might ensue. :happy8:

Everything in your house has to be placed a square away from everything else and lined up nicely, otherwise you fear you'll get stuck and start whining and waving your arms at the ceiling.

Lowering your pants or raising your skirt to use the bathroom suddenly seems weird.

When they say "Malinda McCoy" it drives me crazy, because that's my first name (spelled *exactly* that way, but you can call me Milla, it's easier all around) and close enough to my real surname to sound like they are talking about me.

Thanks, that resolved the bird question! :love5:

The GoBo lights appear to be a Maxis problem, based on other threads I found online. Some folks thought they were tied to lighting mods like commlightson and smart(er)lights or Gunmod's Radiance mod, but I had none of those at the time and there were still issues. Can't go to lots with lights installed without deleting them. It's aggravating.

I say it appears to be a Maxis problem because other users report that even a clean install without custom content doesn't fix the lights and whereas I can't test it as I installed all EPs and SPs at the same time, the issues started with OFB. Other users think that the pool lights conflict with the disco lights, but most lots with the disco lights don't have pools. One fix suggested was to remove all pool lights in-game and then uninstall/reinstall and replace the pool lights, but this drastic measure didn't resolve everyone's issues.

The irritating thing is that they originally worked for me with all EPs and SPs except FF. Hopefully Seasons will correct the problem, but I don't have high hopes.

Users who approached Maxis with support questions were ignored or didn't get useful answers, but Maxis did attempt to help some, which again points to it being a known bug. On the other hand, if it is a Maxis issue, then the lights shouldn't have ever worked in the first place. Right? It's baffling.

Usually users figure out the problem and find a fix, but it seems like only a few people are asking for help with the problem. If anyone CAN help with this, I'd appreciate it. It doesn't appear to be a common issue, though.

I'm going to try adjusting my graphics settings in-game and see if that helps.

I miss my disco lights on my community lots.

Does anyone know what could cause object errors with the GoBo and DiscoBall lights?

I can't see them in-game anymore. Lots that had them working OR new lots.

I get an error message each time and canceling or resetting has no effect, they have to be deleted.

Any ideas what could be conflicting with them? It's driving me crazy. :tard:

Also, I was pretty sure I had a build/buy enabler for community lots, but I can't build most things on dorm lots and can't build or buy on other lots. Also: I had a student ask for a bird cage, got one, and then couldn't buy a bird. So students in dorms can't buy pets?

If you are able to play the game without the patch, I recommend waiting to install it until you have an issue. I didn't, and as a result, my game stopped working altogether. It was working fine before, but I installed the patch anyway.

Suddenly I had hack and mod conflicts, crashing, reduced options for graphics, lag, jumping apart Sims, bluescreens, object errors, cats sinking into floors, and so forth. It might not have been the patch, but the timing is certainly suspicious.

It's also possible that my downloaded patch got corrupted. I tried again on a faster connection and uninstalled and reinstalled and a few of the errors cleared up, but not all.

In short, if it isn't broken, don't patch it. Yet. In my non-expert, user-only opinion, that is. If a mod or expert disagrees with my advice, ignore me and listen to them!

Was it a Maxis breed or a downloaded animal? I don't know if that makes a difference or not, I'm just curious.

Sectional sofa pieces won't snap together if "snapObjectsToGrid" is off. Doors and windows won't snap into walls, either. Lastly, even if "snapObjects..." is on, a door into a garage can't share a tile with a driveway piece, you'll have to make the garage a tile longer or wider for that.

Sometimes "moveObjects on" conflicts with the functioning of objects, too.

Check that these cheats are off and try the sectional pieces again.

Ah ha! You are smart! :worship:  And your mods and hacks are among those I made sure not to lose. Updated them right away.

There were, past tense, indeed some Career hacks I didn't want or download. I suspect they came with EA Exchange lots. But I zapped those a week ago. I also uninstalled / reinstalled the games after that, BUT I didn't touch my registry. Too chicken.

Note to self: never, ever, EVER download any more user-made content from Exchange. UGH. I had forgotten that Golden Rule which was established during Sims (original) play. Normally I wouldn't have, but I am usually on dial-up and had access to a T-1 foe a few hours and gave in to temptation. Stupid! Weh.

Anyway, I removed the associated packages with Sims2Pack Clean Installer. Or tried to, anyway. There must be more masquerading as something else. How do I sniff them out or get the game to move on and stop spamming me?

Also: how on Earth did this affect the disco / GoBo lights? Bizarre. The Career(s) I never used, didn't download intentionally, and didn't want has/have somehow virally infected the fancy dance floor lights! Groo. *irritated*

How do I fix it?

Any enlightenment about the clothing / hair weirdness I mentioned?

Short and sweet and just for fun.

The Sims must be the world's most aggravating--and most addictive--game. Why else, when it acts up, do we not snap the CDs in two and swear off it forever? :-P

I've been getting application crashes (most annoying ones happen when my Sims are downtown, where I can't save new purchases /relationships) which I suspect are due to memory running out. It can hog up to 3/4 of a gig, but that seems to be the upper limit. Some lots show the used memory dropping back under a half gig, some don't. Ugh. I keep Task Manager open in the corner and have a "save now" autospammer added, but there's really nothing I can do but watch it go up and up until the game balks. Sucky. Any tips?

The biggest gripes lately are the non-working GoBo lights and disco ball (lots that have them spam up an error message, lots that don't have them spam an error once they are purchased). I was able to use these even on residential lots earlier.

I'm also getting an error related to the Athletics career (default), though none of my Sims are on that job track. Maybe some students or (down)townies have it.

Lastly, I get a Sim "user" / character error for #205. Investigation revealed it was a professor. I only played one student lot and only met one prof., and this isn't the guy. What has happened?

Two screenshots of these errors are attached. Family shown is new, entering a new, empty Maxis lot for the first time.

Another minor nuisance is that an "all-in-one" lot alarm that prevents burglaries and fires needs resetting each time I enter a lot it is in. It does apparently work, though, as two of my less intelligent Sims tried to set their eyebrows on fire in the kitchen (again).

I do have hacks, but downloaded all updates and ditched unsupported / outdated ones after going through checklists posted at MATY and here and elsewhere by the mod and hack creators.

As for the usual suspects, I don't have and never had inTEENimater and downloaded only the Pets version of InSIMenator. Got all EPs and SPs at the same time (except Family Fun, which I still don't have). Got all EA patches, and, frankly, most of my issues appeared AFTER installing their patches.

I was originally running the game with all the highest settings (reflections on, lot distance maxxed, etc.), and had a live Internet session going as well, so my graphics card is capable of handling it, it's just reverting to less extreme settings now by default and I'm running nothing extraneous at all.

So what the hey is going on?

I need wisdom.

Another quick question or two: if a Sim is buying clothes and the outfit shows in the catalogue but not on the mannequin, that means that the texture didn't download correctly, right? Or is the mesh damaged? Ditto for hair / accessories...if the Maxis default hair is shown, or the default bald mannequin head (and it's not a below-the-neck accessory), which part failed to be
loaded into Downloads properly? Texture or mesh?

I suspect that the clothing issue is a bad mesh and the hair / accessory issues are bad textures, but I'm not sure.

*attached image removed*