Insimenator.org

Yes.... The old Uni barista spamming problem is back with a new twist.

Everytime you will send your sim to a community vacation lot, the game will create a new tour guide character.  If you spend a lot of time there, you can easily end-up with 100 of those without knowing it.  There might be other NPC spamming excessively too.  I tested this myself and can comfirm it is true.

That can easily result in an overpopulated hood and can cause major problems with time to the point of scrapping your entire hood.  

For more info about this, read this post and keep yourself inform of a fix for it:  Tour Guide and Unsavory Charlatan spawn like crazy in BV! (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,9554.0.html)

Yes Eaxis screwed up again!

ETA:  Whenever I will see a fix for this is posted, I will update this post with a link for the fix.  If you see or find something before I do, please post a link. Thanks.

ETA2:  A fix for that is in testing right now, I have no idea yet when it will be posted.

ETA3:  A fix for this bug can now be foundHere (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,9607.0.html)  A lighter version (posted on Insim) only affecting those 2 perticular NPC can now be found Here (http://www.insimenator.org/showthread.php?p=956361)

ETA4:  The official Maxis/EA patch is now out to fix this problem, you can download it here:  Bon Voyage patch #1 (http://thesims2.ea.com/update/getpatch.php?appVersion=1.10&languageCode=)  Expect a patch #2 to be out later since they fix what was urgent only.

Well that explains why one my sims from the bin showed up as a Tour guide! It was rather creepy.

Pescado has updated his anti-redundancy hack to address this issue.

Just posted a direct link to that fix in my 1st post.  Thanks Ancient for letting me know.

Thank god it was fast.

Yay!  Guess I may brave loading it now.  Thanks!

Your welcome, I would hate people game blew up because of Eaxis not checking their stuff correctly before releasing an ep. :tongue:

WOW! Many thanks for the warning AND for the fixing link!
I have everything Sims2 loaded (well, except the Christmas stuff) and this spamming problem would have blown my system up :-(

thats wierd.....i havent noticed any spamming.

you mean that theres a tour guide on all lots in a holiday hood? yeah, i seen one of each of them, but only ever seen one on each lot.
usually looks like the same guy per hood to me...
have noticed slowdown on some lots, though.....are the guides invisible/only shows up as one, or do you mean the game is spaming thier uh..dunno how to say it, like...
like someone standing in the game and spamming the same message over and over, but since its game side stuff (ie, internal spamming) i dont see it as anything but slowdown?

*edit* you do realise that that fix and info is unavailable for those that have given up regestering at places, just to be able to see the content, dont you? im sick and tired of regestering at places i might only visit once in a 6 month period, simply to be able to view a single topic >.<

odd, last I knew you didn't have to be registered to view or download at MATY

anyway, you should be able to get it straight from Pescado's BV directory. you want "antiredundancy"

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/ffs/index.php?dir=bv/hacks/&sort=date&order=desc




The Tour Guide bug is - every time to go to a vacation community lot, the game creates a new Tour Guide instead of reusing an already created one.

One way to check if the bug is affecting you would be to check your neighborhoods characters folder with clean installer. Someone I know did and discovered she had 52 Tour Guides already...

Is it okay to delete some of the tour guides that are already in my game?

I got none  Npc in one hotel it was really funny cause this guy kept poping up. I thing better try this patch :)

I don't know how your internet settings are but I deleted all my cookies which means I did not have auto-registered status on that site on which the fix is posted at, I clicked on the link and it got me directly to the post.  I suggest you try again since there is NO need to be a member to download it.

In my opinion there are 4 must have sites for anyone that uses mods.  Even if registering is required, MATY, MTS2 (but be careful here because of all the one hit wonders that never follow up their work or check compatibility with others), Inteenimater (even if you never use Inteenimater), and this one.  I urge you to reconsider, especially since Pescado at MATY does so many fixes for things that EA/Maxis botched up.

Ancient speaks with a most ancient wisdom. All of the Sites he mentions are must haves. I would add registering at N99. It is also a major font of information and D/L links. N99 is the one of the oldest continuing help Sites.

I have been monitoring my N001 characters since La Belle Princesse Mlle. Doh found out about the duplications. When I started looking I had 723 characters. After a few gameplays, I now have 732. There have been no new CAS Sims nor any births. I just looked at Clean Installer and have 11 Tour Guides and 5 Charlatans, not to mention 3 Ninjas and I have even been to the Far East!

Time to add Dr. Pescado's anti-redundancy (maybe it will edit my prose as well).

EDIT: BTW, I have 53 playable Simmies in Pleasantview and at UNI. WT..hey! Who are the nearly 700 others (besides the found dupes)????????????? Also, what does Clean Installer mean by game object in describing a character????

Sims identified as a Game Object are those such as Stinky Skunk, the Penguin, Mr. Grim himself, and the charming Mrs. C.  Although I haven't checked yet, I believe Tour Guides, Ninjas, the Witch Doctor, and the Wise Old Man fall into this category also.

After putting in anti-redundancy, I deleted the hoods I had running (just trash/test hoods at the time) and started over.  I also put in the default neighborhoods again (hated removing the clean ones, but I wanted to see what EAxis would have without interference other than anti-redundancy.

The main hood, 3 vacation spots and the 2 ghost hoods I have (not running Pets) came to 291 characters.  Going on one vacation brought the total up to 333.  Oh, only 1 is playable.  I have no clue how many more it would be with Pets with the sim bin families, strays, pet adoption pool and where ever else pets may be found.

Toss in Uni, Bluewater, Downtown, along with Pets, I can see this number hitting 700 easily.

Clean Installer identifies the tour guide, ninja and charlatan by name. They are not listed as game objects. I didn't see the wise old man nor the witch doctor. Are they BV characters????

Thanks Ancient for the explanation. It makes sense now as I have all EPs installed.

Just by clicking the first time on your hood and when you see the message "adding exotic destination" the game is adding 66 new sims into your hood.

Adding the 3 new vacation spot location is adding another 38 sims.

Total for BV = 104

In those, the tour guide and charlatan are NOT even included.

I think it is one of the worst EP ever in terms of adding extra sims.

I am a bit upset I do not have a choice (until clean templates are out) to add those 66 sims at start even if I would not have the intention of creating a vacation spot in one of my hoods.  I am not asked if I want them to be added or not.  I would have love and option to create now or later like I have for the vacation subhoods.

Witch doctor, wise old man, Ninja and Big foot are specials NPC.  Tour guide is like Mrs. Crumplebottom, you cannot interact with it other than ask info, it will not show up as sims you know in your relationship window.

I am confused. When I use Pescado's hack, will it clean out the extra NPC's or do I have to manually? Will that mess up my neighborhood, the way it is now? I don't want to lose my neighborhood. Sorry for being dense.

Oh, awesome! I wasn't terribly looking forward to my neighbourhood population reaching critical mass with all those spawned tour guides...

I had loads unsavoury characters but since putting this in its tackled that problem but I have no Ninja no where, before I had them popping up . Iwonder if its the patch or could it be a hack?

The fix won't clean anything, it will just stop the game from continiously creating new tour guide and charlatan characters.

Depending on how many you have, it might not be necessary to clean your hood.  The game by default would have probably generated 3 of each per vacation hood for a total of 9.

Stop it, it did, oh grand wizard of Simdom! I had 732 characters last night and after playing a bit this morning, I still had 732 characters. Hooray for MissDoh!The spamming has officially ceased.

Though it is really sweet of you Jinyc, the one to thank is Pescado he made the fix, I just pass on the information. :)

I thank the good doctor here. I am too afraid to thank him at MATY!!!!!!

Baaaaaa! :D

I am ever so grateful to find a solution to a problem that I didn`t even know it existed just by reading the forums. I´m so glad to be helped by all the nice and caring community members. Really. Big hugs to all!!:love4:

What's the safest/prefered method of cleaning out "extra" NPC's from a hood?

(Since SimPE isn't updated yet...? )

-ZW

I would say leave it that way for now until SimPe is updated.

Played twice and checked again: still 732 characters. I am so grateful for this mod. I am so lucky I have only some 12 extraneous NPCs.

Hugs!

How many Tour Guides are there supposed to be?? My game had 7 so I just disabled 4 of them and added the hack.  With all exp installed there were 723 characters.  I disabled 4 of the tour guides and 4 of the unsavory characters re-ran clean installer and now have 533 characters, weird hunh?

Sorry about this rather pedestrian question: where do I put this mod? Downloads?
You can't imagine how thankful I am

Ok answer in the readme file, silly me, question withdrawn, thanx again!

To what I had read   mydocuments/EA Games/theSims2/downloads

For those wanting a lighter version only affecting those 2 perticular NPC, Alexx58 posted another version of it on Insim, it can be found here:  EP6 No unneeded NPC's respawn (http://www.insimenator.org/showthread.php?p=956361)

If you prefer Alexx58 version to the one Pescado made at MATY, make sure to remove it before installing Alexx58 ones, they will conflict.

If I use simPE, will I be able to delete the extras with that program?  I am not verse with simPE and avoids it like the plague, but I want to delete the 40 extra tour guides and 21 extra charlatans so I can keep my game files clean? ???

SimPE is not updated for BV yet.

An "official" patch should be out this week according to the latest news on the sims 2 sites around Wednesday.  

I will keep you in touch.

Thanks so much!!!:wav: Is it ok to refresh my game and put it in?

Yes, both of the fixes are working, just choose which you prefer, you cannot install both Pescado and Alexx one.

When you will patch the game, just remember to remove it though.

Patch still not out.  Might go to next week since they added a few other fixes to it.

Bon Voyage patch #1 is now out you can get it at the sims 2 site.

Thanks for letting us know.

My pleasure, I just edited my post title as I forgot when I originally posted about the patch being out :doh:

Just added a direct link to it in my first post.

I removed the Anti-Redunancy hack and installed the patch. From what I read the patch was supposed to neutralize the extra NPCs; maybe I read it wrong. In any case since adding Pescado's cure and prior to removing it and putting in the patch I had 732 characters. It has not chnaged since the A-R hack was released. Now after testing the game with the patch installed I have 733 characters. Don't you think that a bit bizarre as I have no new Simmies and played a community lot that has been played umpteen times??????

Jinyc I also install the patch and I removed anti-redudancy and my character folder did not increase so far.  What I think is that while you had the anti-redudancy in, it was keeping the NPC quantity to 1 when usually by default there is 3 of each NPC.

I read report the patch does what it is suppose to do in regard of the tour guide spawn, do not worry about this 1 new character but if you see a lot more popping and can check how many tour guide were added after you removed the anti-redudancy then report back please.

Would the game make another character folder without all these extra character,  if i pull out the one i got now to the desk top,.. an restart the game to make a new folder?

Would that make me loose all my other character, are just not make a new folder at all and shit up the works? are just recreate the same folder?

MissDoh, my Krispy Creme, I will watch to see if any other add ons appear.

I think if you remove your character's folder you would definitely lose your Simmies. I don't think the game will regenerate a new folder. If it does, your lot may be unplayable because the Simmies associated with it would be missing.

EDIT: I just used Clean Installer to check my Characters folder. Pre-patch, consistent 732 characters (and with A-R hack) where I had a combo 13 tour guides, charlatans, local chefs, fire dancers and ninjas I know have 27 included in the total of 733. I am perplexed.

:rofl: Gotta love this.

Didn't the patch shrunk useless extra tour guides character files?  I think it is part of the patch features.  I would have to re-read Jase patch post again but I think it is normal.

Though what you are saying is that you have more of those then before out of the same character quantity? *faints*

Maybe you should wait for an updated SimPe to be sure.

My beloved Kreme Filled Krispy, I just played and still have 733 after visiting another vacation lot. So no new spawns. I may have counted wrong before the patch. Maybe the dreaded 27 were there and kept in check by Pesky's mod. It's just odd that I went from 732 to 733. Weird. And, no, I don't think the patch shrank the useless NPCs ('cause they are still there) and I believe it was supposed to do just that.

Also, I thought the fast speed when entering a community lot would be neutralized. It hasn't.

Maybe it's the old "well, we have patched but it will probably not effect those lots that are older." Poohbah!

I had stopped having lags on vacation. How about now I have at least one per played lot. OY VEY MARIA!

The good news is that I only had one sandcastle built after a three day vacation (this after removing our beloved Empress Kathy's cure).