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EllaCharmed's WA World Replacements Problem
BSIRegina
Posts: 5,110 Member
@TreyNutz yeah, I'm calling on you here because I just saw a comment you made way back when over at MTS on these files. When I downloaded them I assumed since they'd been up for so long they were problem-free so I didn't read the comments and just put them in my game without question. Then yesterday I had Sims in China when I discovered what an absolute mess she'd managed to make of it and it has never been repaired. It looks like possibly replacing lots could work but I also noticed you had problems with a quest after replacing a lot. So I'm wondering, did you ever get that figured out or should I just go back to the original world files? I'd rather have them than this so-called fix.
And in the case of restoring the original files how would be the best way to do that? While my Sims were on vacation I had one of them making friends with a whole bunch of Sims there. Am I right in thinking if I restore the original files then a whole new "China" will be generated upon their return?
And in the case of restoring the original files how would be the best way to do that? While my Sims were on vacation I had one of them making friends with a whole bunch of Sims there. Am I right in thinking if I restore the original files then a whole new "China" will be generated upon their return?
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With WA worlds I'm not sure. You may be able to just delete the world files from your game save. Of course that means you'll lose your progress in those worlds.
Ella Charmed hasn't finished working on many of the worlds she was fixing. I read about it on her blog. She may not get back to finish the job as she has a close relative who has become very ill and she is taking care of them thereby leaving no time for Sims or fixing worlds. She says she'll get back to finishing them if she can whenever she can.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuW44b3uCMtCSaq4gwC8EZg
I saw the info about the program or world path fixes by Ella Charmed but after reading more about it I thought I hold off downloading it until its completely finished.
@BSIRegina I agree about the incomplete files still being available but I did read she had them out there asking people to test them for her.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuW44b3uCMtCSaq4gwC8EZg
Yeah, but the post that shows all the glitched lots in China is almost a year old. Like I said, though, I do understand those things and sometimes they are so draining a person doesn't even have the energy to think about something like Sims. I've been there.
I appreciate your trying to help but yeah, this is a bit more complicated in that they are replacement files for WA "worlds". Most of the time I do okay with some of this more advanced stuff and if I had taken the time to read the thread surrounding it I would have never installed it to begin with. So I can give myself a boot to the head over that. At least I had smarts enough to make back-up copies of the files I was replacing.
To deal with the terrain issues in Ellacharmed's China, I considered two workarounds:
1. Use Ellacharmed's China and replace the lots with original versions in an unplayed save, then copy the nhd file to my current save game. Basically I was thinking of starting a new game, go directly to Edit Town, load up Ellacharmed's China, replace those 2 lots, save. Then copy that nhd file to my current save before anyone traveled to China. For more information about this approach see this discussion (and the next few posts) about doing the same thing to University.
I don't recall if I tried that or not. I definitely thought about it. In university, bulldozing and replacing academic rabbit holes or the student union will mess things up (sim can't go to class, script errors, etc). Perhaps replacing the tombs didn't work for me for similar reasons. I wish I better remember exactly what I tried. My suspicion is that this won't work to replace the Hot Springs tomb and still have the Boulder Smash! adventure work.
2. Go back to the original version of China. That's what I do now. I don't have Ellacharmed's fixed version of China installed (but I do use her fixed versions other worlds including France and Egypt).
I do use a customized version of China, with the Temple of Heaven fixed and one of the ownable houses in the Forbidden City fixed (no door to the bathroom or entry to the kitchen). But that's based on the original EA version and I haven't bulldozed or replaced any lots. I think this works fine although I haven't done those quests in a long time.
In the game where I discovered the issue, my sim never completed Boulder Smash! I decided it wasn't worth generating a whole new China and losing all the friendships he had gained in China. I went back to the original version of China in future games.
Your options:
1. Restore the original file. I don't think this will help immediately. It won't cause the game to generate a whole new China in existing saves. To do that you'd have to delete the existing China nhd file in your current save folder. I believe you'll lose all those friendships with sims in China if you do that.
2. Restore the original China world file but keep your existing China nhd. You can then start a new game, go into Edit Town, load up China (which will be the original version since you restored the original file) and copy the Hot Springs and Dragon Springs lots to the bin. Replace in your current save. The Boulder Smash! adventure in the Hot Springs lot won't work (it's the last one in the Pangu Axe chain after you get the axe - not a huge loss). But your sim can complete the tomb and the rest of the lot will be ok. You'll keep the friendships. That's what I ended up doing in the first game where I stumbled on this issue. The other lot doesn't have a tomb and works fine if you replace it in an existing save. The rest of the adventures in China worked fine for me in that game.
3. Try to complete the Boulder Smash! adventure in the existing Hot Springs with the messed up terrain. I never tried this. If I had known that replacing the lot would ruin the quest I would have. I think only the ground level is messed up. The lower tomb might be ok if you can get your sim inside or at least in a position to smash the boulder and jump in the dive well. Once completed, bulldoze and replace with a copy from the original version so the fishing holes and the pool are usable. Replace the Dragon Springs lot at your leisure. There's no adventures there.
I would try completing the Pangu Axe quest chain first on the ruined Hot Springs lot. If successful you can replace the lot later; the quest isn't repeatable so it won't matter. Only if that's not doable would I consider other options, mainly because your sim made all those friendships and it seems a waste to lose those. If the tomb cannot be entered due to the terrain, then I only see 2 options: give up on the Boulder Smash! quest and keep the existing China or give up all the friendships your sim made in China and delete the China nhd file in your current save and let the game generate a new one based on the original world file.
For future games....if you try to complete Boulder Smash! and are successful, let me know. If that works, it might be tolerable to keep that lot with the ruined terrain until the quest is completed, then replace it. I might actually go back to Ellacharmed's version of China if that's possible. The Dragon Springs lot doesn't have any tomb, you can replace that with a copy of the original version anytime. I don't think that would affect any quests.
Note: to get copies of the original versions of those 2 lots you'll need to restore the original China file at least temporarily.
Lastly, it's been a long time since I've visited this issue. I'm sufficiently intrigued whether Boulder Smash! can be completed in Ellacharmed's version. I seem to recall a comment somewhere (MTS?) that someone had trouble with it. I'm going to try it out in a test save.
I just checked her friends and acquaintances from China and really at this point I don't mind wiping them. After all, I can use a cheat to get rid of the moodlet so they can go straight back to China (I have a habit of messing things up if possible so all those cheaty things give me ways out of my stupid mistakes). The ones she got the friendliest with will ultimately be moved into their town so it would be too weird for my tastes to move them in then go back to China and be faced with copies of the same Sims, although I tell ya, these are not foreign countries but amusement parks ala West World so....
I never have managed to do all of the quests and at some point I really would like to and was thinking of adding a new rule to the NIF Challenge and doing that in this game. It's comforting to know I won't run into similar problems in the replacements for Egypt and France.
I asked because I was curious and I was really tempted to download the world path fix for Monte Vista but I didn't.
I didn't know that it can be more complicated that was why I asked.
I am still pretty clueless and learning.
There is a problem near Hot Springs and another in Tuatha's tomb in France. You need to use a cheat to teleport past the various routing issues.
I think these problems were what EllaCharmed was trying to fix when she started working on these worlds.
In Pangu's Axe tomb the Symbol of that tomb is in the area you can't get to unless you teleport past that bit of broken routing. This means you can't complete your collection if you don't get into that area of the tomb so it breaks the game by not being able to get into that part of the tomb.
In Tuatha's tomb in France, you can't complete the tomb as a Sim can't walk through an archway. That archway leads to a lot of the rest of the cave and the dive well that takes them to the rest of the tomb under the island in the middle of the river in France.
There are annoying routing issues near Hot Springs.
There were other routing issues introduced by EA that mean you now have to click in front of the sim several times in some tombs to be able to get them to find their way to where you want them to go.
Additionally, Pangu's Axe is touchy and has its own bugs. Some people have a bug whereby the axe isn't in the tomb. You need to get it from buy de bug but I don't know if this means you can't complete the series of adventures.
Whatever happens, don't lose the axe once you have it as apparently you can only have one of them. So once you get it you may not be able to replace it. But it is always worth trying buydebug for it if you do lose it. Apparently it can just vanish after you find it but I've never had that happen.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuW44b3uCMtCSaq4gwC8EZg
I know I lost my flying vacuum for some unknown reason, I would hate to lose the axe when I finally find it.
I don't think those world fixes have been worked on in some time. I'm pessimistic they'll ever be finished.
The world fixes are probably better thought of as world replacements for EA's versions instead of mods. If you installed the Monte Vista fixed version and started a new game in Monte Vista, the fixes would be baked into the save. Lots and world terrain in your existing Monte Vista game(s) wouldn't revert back if you replaced the fixed versions with EA's originals. New games in Monte Vista would use the originals though.
I have MV and Ellacharmed's version of MV. I don't know what the original is like. The fixed version played well enough.
The only one I have so far is @ciane's 'fixed' Island Paradise.
@dx1965 it seems no matter how much I know about this game there's still more to figure out so I'm still learning stuff too.
I don't know the issues with the original except what is noted on the MTS page. I default to Ellacharmed's versions except for her fixed version of China. In my one MV game with the fixed version I noticed:
-teaching teen sims to drive was problematic in that they would often quit the interaction prematurely. Dunno whether that's an issue with the default version too. I assume that has something to do with the roads but I'm not sure. I've seen it happen in other worlds too.
-the load time of my game would get longer and longer over 2 sim weeks. From 5 min to 23+ min long. I was playing with an overstuffed (i.e. 24 sim) household. Resetting the town with MasterController fixed the load times temporarily. I have no idea what caused the increasing load times. It may have had nothing to do with Ellacharmed's version of MV.
I don't recommend either way. I didn't notice anything so strange that I seriously though about reverting back to the original.
http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/811253/removing-lag-save-files-in-1st-post/p1
I don't know if @ciane based her save off of Ellacharmed's fixed version. At one point in ciane's thread I thought she recommended starting with Ellacharmed's version of Isla Paradiso.
I've never used EllaCharmed's version, but did see it at MTS.
@TreyNutz, thanks for your input. I'll just make a note to play it for a few days and see what I find.
Its seems to be pretty overwhelming amount of stuff of all sorts of complexity. My brain is stumbling a bit about it. I hope it gets easier though.
Took 3 months just figure out certain basic stuff, still trying to figure it out.
I could have easily downloaded something Monte Vista and been worse boat because I don't think I know all right files to back up in this case so you are further ahead then I am on this matter.
World Adventure quest I really struggled with them, most of time I made any progress was looking for walk throughs on youtube.
But I am not even close to acquiring the axe yet.
@JoAnne65 thank you for that bit! I'm saving that in a Notepad doc because it's sure to come in handy later on.
@dx1965 I would imagine by the time I finish them a few walk-throughs will have been involved. I was never anywhere near awesome with figuring out puzzles like and by now I'm pathetic. And do you remember a few months back when I told you this game has a learning curve to it? There's a lot to this game.
Forgot to add you need the enablelotlocking cheat before you can adjust those lots. And remember to lock them again after changing them (well, I think, I always do just in case it's important
Yeah, I've edited those type of lots before and have had more than one brain fart and forgot to activate the cheat beforehand.
I put EllaCharmed's version in to test, but I took it back out again after testing it. It appeared to play fine for me, but it didn't have all the corrections I wanted. So, as I said, I removed her IP.world and placed EA's IP.world back in.
So, my IP is just changes made in game (not in CAW and not with Ella's IPfix). I just edit town right away and move out the houseboaters and delete most (but not all) the houseboats. Some of the problem boat docks I make NVA. I delete the towers and buffet tables and anything requiring an NPC from the resorts (except Hobarts that is set up to be free). I redo some of the homes that cause major problems because of arches, stairs, doors, or other routing issues. It's all things that anyone could do to their game if they wanted to take the time to do it.
I have two versions available. One is the saved game that I set-up as a template for my starts with store content and all the EPs and SPs. I just uploaded my template to share with others.
The other version was making corrections with only IP stuff, so that anyone could load it and play without needing to make changes. (I use an mts Any Game Select program to avoid loading anything from any other expansion or stuff pack - like the new launcher option that Origin offered with the last patch, but that doesn't tie my game to Origin.)
I have thought about making yet another version - one that uses Ella Charmed's world as a base, but I haven't.
So mine, right now, requires only that the files be dropped into a folder in the save folder with the same name that I called my save: IPrdy (IP ready) or IPonlyRdy (which is the IP only version). It would then appear as an option with other played games after loading the game.
Store Install
Unlocked Stencils
random legacy
Once my sim finally got Pangu's Axe and got the Boulder Smash! quest I saved and headed to the Hot Springs lot. My sim couldn't get to the boulder, the terrain and stairs were too broken. I used the testingcheats' Teleport Me Here option to get him in front of the boulder. After that, the exploring the tomb went fine and the quest relic spawned like it should. Once he finished the tomb I had to teleport him to the ground, which wasn't surprising. After the turned in the quest I bulldozed the lot and replaced it with the original version. I did that mainly for looks and also because occasionally I have sims fish there. I don't think other quests will be affected.
After that, I'd say that Ellacharmed's version is workable. I have to use the Teleport Me option to get around the constriction after obtaining Pangu's Axe anyway. The broken terrain of the Hot Springs lot isn't that much different to deal with.
I guess it all boils down to whether her other fixes in China are worth the trouble. I've been playing the original version for quite a while and don't have routing issues that I've noticed (or that Overwatch can't handle). I'm not sure whether I'll keep her version or go back to the original.
edit: and just after I posted I got 3 inactives stuck in the foundation of the Hot Springs lot (original version). I know routing through that lot is really weird but I've never had sims stuck under the foundation. I made it NVA.
@ciane thank you for the information! Thanks to TreyNutz I have your original thread for the save and will most likely download it for when I want to play there. I was looking through all the changes and that's one daunting list.