It certainly seems as though that patch is implicated.
I see that the next EP, Generations, is now being officially advertised. I wonder if they will take the opportunity to patch their patch when they release this EP. I don't want to give EA any more money until the game works properly, so I'll be patching but not purchasing.
I hope they will patch it too, my game is unplayable now because it's only a matter of time before my Sims go invisible/get stuck. Usually happens within 10 mins of gameplay.
I got Late Night 2 weeks ago. I have WA before that and my game was NOT fully patched to the latest patch with breast sliders before I got Late Night. I never had this problem until a week into playing Late Night.
My family has 8 Sims, a couple will go invisible and the rest will get stuck. The whole neighbourhood gets stuck at this moment too. I've not tried ResetSim* before, but it's annoying knowing that they could all get stuck again at any moment.
I'm wondering if I backup my game, uninstall each game, then reinstall everything (except LN) up to the patch before breast sliders, would this solve the problem?
I'm sure there will be a patch but that patch will be to make the base game compatible to the the new EP (and I wouldn't be too surprised if the memories are going to be in the base game after patching as well). I doubt there will be a lot of bug fixes though so don't hold your breath for that.
There will then probably be another patch a month later where we will get some bug fixes but I don't think this issue will be solved anytime soon for I think, they have no clue where to look for the problem in the first place.
I'm shaking my head in amazement -- This game was broke from the start and got even more broke with every update and EP release, but people bought one EP after another anyway.
I wasn't at all interested in World Adventures so I ignored that release, but Ambitions sounded great, so I got that one. When it screwed averything up I refused to buy anything else from EA until they fixed it. I'm still waiting, of course, but I've given up hope that they're ever going to fix anything. For their part, they can give up on ever getting another dollar out of me. I've been buying and loving EA titles since 1987, but no more. When this company flames out after decades of providing wonderful software they'll probably blame Zynga or other free game providers, but that's not the problem. Quality assurance (QA) is their problem. I'd love to continue buying their stuff for 30 more years if they would allow me to keep my self-respect by making sure their product wasn't useless, but I'd feel stupid buying anything else considering my last purchase is STILL unuseable.
In the meantime, I'm playing a MOSTLY bug-free game in the following manner:
I play with no CC. I don't know if CC is an issue - I just don't take the chance.
I play with no mods. I don't know if mods are an issue - I just don't take the chance.
I play all the families in town, so I play with aging off and I age everyone manually with the testingCheatsenabled true cheat (you could use a birthday cake if you prefer, but I find them to be ridiculously flammable). Just turning off aging solves LOTS of problems. The story progression toggle does nothing, but enabling aging causes lots of problems, unfortunately. If you play with aging enabled, you have story progression regardless of whether you have that toggle off or on. It was determined long ago that the Story Progression toggle is linked to absolutely nothing - it's a dead switch that does nothing at all.
Every update beyond version 1.11 broke the game further, so after uninstalling and reinstalling my game I used manual updates to update my base game only to version 1.11. That means I cannot use my Ambitions EP (or any other EP's except perhaps WA, which I'm not interested in), so I'm playing only the base game. This solves almost every other problem. Update 1.12 was the update released coinciding with the Ambitions release and it introduced lots of bugs that have still never been addressed to my knowledge (at least up to update 1.15 at which point I gave up on updates as a solution), such as the run-everywhere bug and romantic interactions bug and too many other game killing bugs that made me want to just quit playing altogether. Many of those bugs are in the base game update itself, and occur whether you use the Ambitions EP or not, but installing Ambitions does introduce even more problems beyond that.
There remains a pathing issue that causes extreme lag, often manifesting itself most noticeably in sound malfunction, and sometimes prevents sims from doing what you want them to do. If you order your sim to do something and they stamp their feet complaining about a car blocking their path, this is your problem. If you cannot get into a rabbithole entrance, this MAY be your problem. In my experience, this issue has caused all the above and I suspect is also the culprit of isolated instances of finding sims stuck or standing in places they shouldn't be (like Bebe Hart standing in the sky above town reading a book). I have traced this pathing issue to inactive families having a car in their useable inventory. I'd recommend that when starting a new game, that you go thru each and every existing family moving all vehicles into their family inventory (storage) where they cannot access them. Once this is done, you can prevent the problem from occuring in the first place by putting all family vehicles in family storage before switching to a different active family. However, if you're trying to address this issue in a mature neighborhood where the problem has already manifested itself, it's more difficult to find the vehicles which have ghosted (become invisible) and have ended up stuck in unlikely places (such as rabbit-hole entries, residence entries, underground, etc). Finding all those can be tricky, but if you persist with experimentation until you have them all, you'll be amazed at the difference it makes. They'll still use cars that they don't own, probably related to their occupation and rank, but those are not a problem. It's cars that they own that are the problem.
Lastly, I use Windows XP home with only 4 gigs RAM, so I have to keep my town size limited or the game will become slow, anyway. I tolerate extremely slow loading so long as the game runs sufficiently well in play. When the town gets too big I start paring down the population by killing off the most irrelevant people (usually elders, then ugly children) and limiting households to one child to make sure that the town's next generation is smaller while still continuing the bloodlines of each family.
I'm no longer pulling my hair out. You may be reluctant to play this game in the same fashion as me, giving up on all the EP's that you've wasted money on, but for me the game is still good, still fun to play like this. You may want to consider it before turning your back on the whole thing, forever.
editting: added "(at least up to update 1.15 at which point I gave up on updates as a solution)"
Hi Zoid42071, it’s true that a lot of money has gone to EA for this broken game. It’s a travesty.
If I had bought Sims 3 back in 2009 then I probably wouldn’t have bought so many EP/SPs for it. I tend to wait before buying a game, so that any bugs are ironed out. I carried on playing Sims 2 very happily until this January, so I waited two years and then got all the packs at the same time. I had no problems whatsoever with Sims 2, so I didn’t anticipate this situation (the only thing I didn’t like about Sims 2 was the fact that I couldn’t get all of the expansions because I have a Mac not PC).
Having played Sims 3 for a few months, I just don’t think there’s enough content in the base game alone to keep me playing - I really liked the expansions. It’s good that Zoid42071 has found a way to play without bugs wrecking his game, but I wouldn’t enjoy playing all the families and manually aging. In Sims 2 I sometimes played the houses in rotation to try to keep the neighbourhood in sync in terms of age and seasons, despite my strong preference for playing one family long-term, so one of the major attractions of Sims 3 was that this happens automatically. If I have to go round the houses, I might as well go back to non-glitchy Sims 2 house rotation. I’m grateful for the suggestions but I don’t think it would work out for me, just not my style of play.
The only thing EA seem to care about is money. I’ve seen a lot of other players on these forums who are very excited about the new EP and who don’t seem to have these game bugs, so I don’t have much hope that there’ll be any dent in EA’s profits if only a few of us hold out, although at least I know that I personally haven’t wasted any more money. Once the games I already have work right, then I might consider Generations.
I agree with you totally Caspin
Im on Windows Xp and I had minor problems with Sim 2 and not much with Sims 3
until the patch before LateNight and it seemed to affect people no matter if
they had addons or not. NOt all though Many are playing just find with cc you name it but there is this undercurrent that is quite strong of people who dont.
I also waited for many of the add ons for a long time
I think many people dont have problems and EA suffers in my opinion from terrible
customer service. They have it but if its not on their list of what to do they just ignore you like you dont exist.
I have written to the EA headquarters and never got a reply so I will again but this
time registered.
like you I could not play the way Zoid does but I think many of his suggestions are good.
I really believe people have to start writing and phoning EA HQ because it appears
no answer will be forth coming on this forum.
But if we look they cant even get this web page to work right so imagine when it comes to the game. A person on here cannot get to his web page You get the OOps
and he has complained and complained. At last he was told the reason is he bought
to much stuff from the EA store for the game Imagine gettting a answer like that
and to bad so sad. So he is writing a registered letter.
Its not they dont have CS. It helped me twice on Sims 2 but on this problem noted
above they seem not to have a clue.
WA has been out forever and it has 2 bad glitches and has had them since
it was out basically Still not fixed.
Another sign of To bad so sad.
I wont be buying the new addon and I really want to but fool me once shame on you
fool me twice shame on me.
Hi: I have started so many new games I've lost count (I've also uninstalled and reinstalled three times).
When I start a new game, I immediately go through my town and delete every car
and every car space on the community lots, then on the individual family lots
and from the inventory of the families I have no intention of ever playing again.
This seems to have helped with the "lag" caused by piling up cars and stereos.
This spawning of cars and instruments, along with the broken excavation dating to Ambitions is not my fault nor my PC's fault and I have no CC or Mods and never
have had. EA has completely ignored the spawning problem and the excavation issue like they don't exist.
I play with Story Progression and Aging off.
I still believe this game is flawed out of the box but I'm no game developer and
don't have a clue "why".
I believe EA will continue to ignore these issues and the invisible/stuck Sims issue and pump out EP's and SP's and store stuff - as long as people keep buying.
Until the game starts to implode for more and more people, with the addition of every EP/SP, nothing is going to be done.
This thread and the previously "deleted" one is evidence enough of EA's mindset.
Hi 45rpm and Nicki. That's exactly right - there are enough players whose game still works (or works well enough, at least, for them to still enjoy playing) who will keep buying the EPs and SPs and things from the Store. EA rakes in more and more money and has no real incentive to fix these bugs. I saw someone on another thread trying to organise a boycott of EA goods but only people with bugs are going to want to do that - after all, if my game worked well then I'd be happily anticipating buying the new EP.
I feel that all I can really do at this point is keep testing the game as best I can and reporting my findings here, not give any of my own money to EA, try writing a letter of complaint perhaps.
It is possible that a patch will come and rescue our games... but it might be a while. It is also possible, I think, that the new EP or the ever increasing amount of Sims 3 content will break more and more players' games, in which case we may reach a tipping point and then EA will have to take notice. Looks like we are not yet there though.
I haven't changed anything, my computer is the same, and I'm still using the base game and Ambitions. I've had the problems of lagging and freezing and invisibility. And documented them via screen shots, the best I can.
While I still have a few odd things happen, I'm doing pretty good right now. I was up to Week 15, Day 3 (w15d3) in Twinbrook with the Goode and Bad household. They'd both married and divorced, and we'd had floor fishing and the mirror reflection not being consistent for framed artwork.
I decided to move them to Sunset Valley, and have been playing the two lads lag/freeze/invisible free. I'm up to w9d1. We're getting into the artistic side, doing more painting, sculpting, inventing, and guitar playing. There's a full garden, they each have their own police car to drive. Ambrosia is ready when needed, plenty of deathfish in the fridge. I'm learning how the Omni seeds work (last time I threw away all the bad, horrifying, stinky, whatever grades of Omni seeds, not realizing the cruddy ones work swell for books and candles).
I've been buying/trying out the things I hadn't done before, like buying more stuff from the Consignment store. Will get around to trying out selling stuff there too.
Sinbad fell through the stairs once, and required a reset. He was complaining about it being dark and the room being unfinished. Well, you're under the house buddy, it's going to be like that. The game did try to self-correct. At first he was standing on the ground under the house, which would have had him halfway showing inside the house, but when I clicked up a level, he popped up almost out of the foundation, to having just his ankles stuck in the floor. Going back down a level had him floating above the ground. So, reset him and he's worked fine since then.
What I haven't tried yet are children. Somehow that thing with the child being drawn to the fridge to be fed or picked up messes up any game if the child's bedroom is not on the same floor as the kitchen (the toddler at the top of the stairs problem).
No one has popped over their covers yet. I consider the game doomed at that point and don't bother to try anything else.
I'm not using any mods. I'm not deleting caches regularly. I'm just playing the game. So, why is it working NOW and was one bad thing after another previously? I don't know.
I'm using the pre-made sims, that is one difference. Not trying to create a new character to interact with the characters I already am familiar with in the towns.
I'm thinking there's hope for the game to work right, as it is working pretty much right for me at this time.
There's an old saying "Many hands make light work". The more of us that DOCUMENT the problems, take the screen shots, show the errors, the better able EA and anyone else can see the problems we're running into.
Some of the people who view our screenshots KNOW what the problem is, and can then share what the solutions are. Some folks track down the specific problem areas, identifying the problem.
EA has no control over what third parties do, so it's really important to continue posting problems and their solutions.
But EA certainly has control over what their own products should and shouldn't be doing, and again, document it with screen shots.
As it is, just about every day I can find something "not quite right" happening in the game. Like yesterday I noticed that the wind power generator's shadow is fixed, and doesn't show the revolving blades. I didn't notice this before when I had a bunch of wind power generators, because I'd stuck them on the roof at the Goth house and never noticed the shadows.
Document it all, via the screen shots. I haven't had accumulating cars (that I know of) in personal inventories, but a shot of the game window would show this, if someone can do that. I don't know how to do a screen shot from within the game that shows the control panel, but I think there is a way. I just take the picture from the game window when I need to show something else.
Try to get an image of every single problem you encounter. It might help with identifying the problem and finding the solution!
I agree with you completely, nickibitsward. It cannot be possible that the game developers are entirely unaware that there are major flaws somewhere in the base of this game. How could they not know, when from the start back in 2009, customers have been sharing their experiences here on the forums concerning save file corruption in various shapes and forms, whether it shows up after playing for 20 Sim weeks, after changing active households a number of times, playing in the same neighborhood for a substantial period of time, traveling to France, China, or Egypt one too many times, etc., etc. There are so many different instances we have encountered save game corruption, and almost all of them have been addressed either in a patch (which may or may not have fixed anything), or a post here in general made by a Guru that someone, somewhere, is aware of the reported problems and it is under further investigation.
Even these problems, with invisible Sims, have been addressed by SimGuruHydra, though that was months ago, in my opinion not helpful at all, and did not actually seem to consider most of the problems that tend to go along with the mentioned "invisible sims issue". But at least, it was said that they are aware of the problem. And as mentioned in this thread, one of the previous patches (possibly the patch that caused these problems in the first place) listed all our issues in the things-being-fixed-in-this-patch info. I for one didn't even have these problems before that patch, though I barely played before then because I was still unhappy with losing my first household because of World Adventures and save error corruption. So I find it extremely hard to believe that they don't know about our problems. They know. We are just being left completely in the dark with our unplayable games.
Another thing I want to say - I appreciate all the suggestions having to do with playing a certain way to avoid these problems. I am very glad that some of you have been able to adapt your gameplay to enjoy playing without these problems showing up.
But, I am not going to change the way I play just to try to get around these problems. I would not buy Mario Kart to only play as Toad, drive in reverse, and only use green shells. I would not shell out the money for Rock Band, a guitar, a drum set, a microphone, and a keyboard, only to play Hip Hop songs on bass. I hope I'm making my point clear. :P It may work for some, but I think it is well within our rights as paying customers, having invested so much money into this franchise, to be able to play the way we want to play, especially when one of the larger selling points of this game is the freedom that exists to get creative with the way you play.
That said, I will not even consider paying for Generations, until I see evidence here that these issues have been solved. I might not even spend the money then.
Drewmann- Well said ! I also don't believe we should have to tip-toe around while playing this game. We should just be able to PLAY and ENJOY !
I am sure EA is well aware of these problems, but I strongly believe they do not have a clue as to how to fix them. I think until they figure it out- they refuse to post here. It would mean owning up to their many flaws and it would be too humiliating for them.
EA- it's not so hard to admit that you are human- Say "I'm sorry and we are hard at work on a solution". See ? It's easy !
I also think- as another member posted- that the more EP's they put out - the more people will have all these problems. It's only a matter of time.
Meanwhile - I have sent out 3 letters to different dept. heads with "proof of delivery" signitures needed. How much you want to bet that they all get returned to sender ?
:shock: Well, I made it to Sim Week 21/Day 7 and then my two sims and the maid went invisible. After reseting, they just became frozen shortly after. Same ol' same ol'...
The Sims is the largest game franchise for EA and this is how they treat their customers? Snubbed... Still pushing product when there is already faulty product out there. Quite ridiculous...
I agree that we all need to take a stand and do something so that we are no longer ignored. COMPLAIN COMPLAIN COMPLAIN!!!!
It seems they're a little more inclined to offer "customer service" when another route is taken.
EA had already lost two sales to me of World Adventures and Late Night. Why? Because I read reviews of the games and the glitches and poor performance. I didn't buy them then and I still won't buy them now.
Documenting the problems, showing the images of all the things that can and do go wrong can also dissuade potential customers. It's not just buggy, it's THIS buggy, as the customers browse the photos.
There are dates associated with my screen shots, so on that particular day that I took the shot, that is what happened. Yes, it could be fixed, and then I would have a record of past bugs, things that don't happen anymore.
Did I KNOW whether or not World Adventures and Late Night would perform poorly on my computer? No. But I wasn't willing to chance it, based on the reviews.
If I had seen the photos of what can go wrong before buying the base game and Ambitions, I wouldn't have bought them either. But I didn't have those problems when I started playing back in December. They happened later on, with the last updates for the game(s).
It's another reason to document with photos. Save other people the expense and frustration. And if EA notices their sales plummeting, they'll have a real good idea why. It's their own fault, and they aren't doing what needs to be done.
The more screen shots there are out there of the big problems, the more likely they will come up in a search, and the less likely people will want to buy the games.
EA already has our money. But they won't get anymore of it from me until this current game works. And there's no reason for anyone else to spend money on a seriously problematic game.
Places that might let our voices be heard would be on game review sites. They'll be reviewing Medieval and Generations. The game review sites will probably have problems, just like many of us. And that will scare off a whole bunch of potential buyers.
My own review would be "It would be a lot of fun if it worked right."
I have believed for ages that EA has no clue how to fix the problems. No matter all the documenting and posting and pictures, etc., etc. We will not get a fix. :evil: Not being "techie", I am not SURE. . . but, I believe, as it does not seem to be the absolutely same thing that causes the freezing and disappearing every single time, there is nothing they can zero in on (assuming they were actually trying). I think one flaw links to and / or generates yet another.
Well, I, for one, have no intention of buying the new EPs and SPs. . . not throwing more money down a rat hole.
Just wanted to let you guys know that I'm reading. Not much I can add.
I have written up a post on invisible Sims in my blog but of course there's not much of a solution there. Link is in first post.
If anyone has a game saved BEFORE their sim has turned invisible AND the invisibility occurs every time they start said game, that's one I'd be interested in having. Let me know if you have such a game.
I would be very happy to supply a pre-invisible and post-invisible game to you, crinrict. My current game is going pretty well (sim week 5)and I'm saving different versions of it for version control as I go along. I'm keeping a log of any glitches encountered. However I don't get to play very often so I expect someone else will get there first!
My feeling is that this is fixable. EA just needs to do is devote some resources to it. Once a tipping point is reached, with sufficient players stopping spending money on the franchise so that profits are hit, then they might get their act together. It's a disgrace that they have released such a shoddy product. If I had other computer games that I liked to play then maybe I'd give up on it entirely, but I've been playing Sims games for over a decade and I really want it to work. While I can still get some enjoyment from playing a test game then I do think it's worth documenting and testing.
My friend had problems with other EA games - a football one in particular. Their customer support for that was also poor. However that was a stand-alone game in a series. Once the next game in that series is released, there is no real incentive for EA to fix the older versions. However Sims 3 is current and it is incomplete - by which I mean that they will want to release more EPs, more SPs, mores Store content, and they will want us to buy it. So at some point, they'll need to devote the necessary resources to fixing these issues. I hope so anyway!
I did some tests on my game, and I was playing Twinbrook, with some families, they were vampires and 5 star celebrities, I did not add any of the community lots from sims ambitions and no communtiy lots from late night and no night clubs in this world. I played this world for about 10 weeks and I did not have any invisible sims, there where no lags and no freezes!!!. However when I then started a new world saved that is when both the worlds started to freeze and lag. I then deleted these two worlds and started a new world. The new world has just the nightclubs on it, but playing the same family, it just has one invisible sim that has shown up, there are no Freezes and lags!!! I am not sure if this test means anything, but this is what has happened on my game!!!
Gallery ID - Rubysim Pictures of my sims will be on my page
If anyone has a game saved BEFORE their sim has turned invisible AND the invisibility occurs every time they start said game, that's one I'd be interested in having. Let me know if you have such a game.
I have a game like that, I just so happened to back up the file before it went crazy. Game has now become pretty much unplayable, I will probably have to try reinstalling, but if it's the game file that's glitched and not the game entirely will it make a difference? I really don't want to lose my legacy family...
OK, I'm going to add to this thread because I am so p***** off with not being able to play TS3 properly.
I have lost game after game to this/these bugs.
The first time it happened to me I, by elimination, found that it was a crib that was causing the cascade effect. The game thought the baby was in the crib but it was on the floor and anytime anyone tried to interact of even think about the baby they froze and/or disappeared. I managed to rectify that game by using cheats and deleting the bugged crib. It then happened again a few game days later but I couldn't find the root object.
On subsequent games I have tried to find the object or sim which is causing this cascade of bugs, even deleting everything my household owns in attempt to locate it, but I've never been able to fix the corruption since.
NB: I say "cascade" because I have noticed that once another sim interacts in any way with a bugged object or sim - even thinks about them - they bug out too. So one bugged object soon becomes the whole town bugged as they interact.
I find it outrageous that a mod doesn't reply to this and the many other threads made about this game-breaking issue. I also find it ridiculous that it isn't mentioned in the Knowledge Base - as if it doesn't exist.
If only they could code something which times out when a sim tries to interact with something but fails and freezes it may help.
Anyway, I had to rant after just losing another dynasty to this bug.
EA are one of the biggest game companies on the planet and have huge resources at their disposal and yet they allow flagship IP of theirs to be rendered unplayable for many by this bug and yet they continue to release EPs and variations (medieval).
If anyone has a game saved BEFORE their sim has turned invisible AND the invisibility occurs every time they start said game, that's one I'd be interested in having. Let me know if you have such a game.
I have a game like that, I just so happened to back up the file before it went crazy. Game has now become pretty much unplayable, I will probably have to try reinstalling, but if it's the game file that's glitched and not the game entirely will it make a difference? I really don't want to lose my legacy family...
Could you upload that savegame (zip-up the whole folder from that savegame) to some file sharing site like mediafire and post the link here ? I would really like to look at that.
There will then probably be another patch a month later where we will get some bug fixes but I don't think this issue will be solved anytime soon for I think, they have no clue where to look for the problem in the first place.
ROFLMAO!!! If they would venture into this thread for even a few minutes, they just "might" have a clue!
I had an invisible Sim just now for the very first time (at least for the first time that I noticed). I played a custom world (Riverblossom Hills) that initially ran way better than Bridgeport and started lagging around week 10. I slowed it down with Relativity to 50%, deleted trees and families and lowered the graphics settings but approaching week 13 even this could not help anymore. Time jumped in 5 minute intervals and everything was crawling. It took my Sim approximately 1 hour to get out of bed and make his way to the bathroom (in a 10x15 house). It was Saturday around midnight and I began to search for stuck Sims and "found" an invisible one (thanks to MasterController) that must have stood by the road for hours on end, because when I switched to his family he had the work-tone action in the upper left corner.
Resetting him fixed his invisibility and I ran a "reset everything" with MasterController and ran Overwatch cleanups twice. The lag persisted, however. I have a save, but as I said, it's in a custom world.
I also ran the program on my Mac that monitors CPU and memory usage and was quite surprised that my so-called mid-range machine was actually not working to its full capacity. The Sims used some 2 GB of RAM (out of 4) and there was still 1 GB left and the CPU only peaked occasionally at 75% (2.8 GHz Core 2 Duo), so no CPU overload and still enough RAM left.
I packed my family after that and will move it to another world. If the problem persits there, too, I'm done with that game.
EDIT: Iforgot to mention that by the time this whole disaster began I also experienced sudden jumps in save file sizes, like from 38 to 50 and then back to 38 MB.
I had an invisible butler I couldn't get rid of. She kept cooking, and cooking, and cooking. Couldn't click on her, she wasn't there. Couldn't "reset sim" because I didn't remember her last name. Even uninstalled Sims 3 and all the expansions. Nothing I tried worked. Finally I thought that maybe if she didn't get paid she would quit. I spent like crazy doing money eating modifications on my house and anything I could think of to get my money down to where she couldn't draw her salary and she left!!! I then used the motherlode cheat to get my money back. Makes me think twice about hiring another butler. Hope this works for others.
Comments
I see that the next EP, Generations, is now being officially advertised. I wonder if they will take the opportunity to patch their patch when they release this EP. I don't want to give EA any more money until the game works properly, so I'll be patching but not purchasing.
I got Late Night 2 weeks ago. I have WA before that and my game was NOT fully patched to the latest patch with breast sliders before I got Late Night. I never had this problem until a week into playing Late Night.
My family has 8 Sims, a couple will go invisible and the rest will get stuck. The whole neighbourhood gets stuck at this moment too. I've not tried ResetSim* before, but it's annoying knowing that they could all get stuck again at any moment.
I'm wondering if I backup my game, uninstall each game, then reinstall everything (except LN) up to the patch before breast sliders, would this solve the problem?
There will then probably be another patch a month later where we will get some bug fixes but I don't think this issue will be solved anytime soon for I think, they have no clue where to look for the problem in the first place.
Please do not send me PMs/post on my wall if you're looking for help. I can't attend to those. You can find me at AnswerHQ.
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I wasn't at all interested in World Adventures so I ignored that release, but Ambitions sounded great, so I got that one. When it screwed averything up I refused to buy anything else from EA until they fixed it. I'm still waiting, of course, but I've given up hope that they're ever going to fix anything. For their part, they can give up on ever getting another dollar out of me. I've been buying and loving EA titles since 1987, but no more. When this company flames out after decades of providing wonderful software they'll probably blame Zynga or other free game providers, but that's not the problem. Quality assurance (QA) is their problem. I'd love to continue buying their stuff for 30 more years if they would allow me to keep my self-respect by making sure their product wasn't useless, but I'd feel stupid buying anything else considering my last purchase is STILL unuseable.
In the meantime, I'm playing a MOSTLY bug-free game in the following manner:
I play with no CC. I don't know if CC is an issue - I just don't take the chance.
I play with no mods. I don't know if mods are an issue - I just don't take the chance.
I play all the families in town, so I play with aging off and I age everyone manually with the testingCheatsenabled true cheat (you could use a birthday cake if you prefer, but I find them to be ridiculously flammable). Just turning off aging solves LOTS of problems. The story progression toggle does nothing, but enabling aging causes lots of problems, unfortunately. If you play with aging enabled, you have story progression regardless of whether you have that toggle off or on. It was determined long ago that the Story Progression toggle is linked to absolutely nothing - it's a dead switch that does nothing at all.
Every update beyond version 1.11 broke the game further, so after uninstalling and reinstalling my game I used manual updates to update my base game only to version 1.11. That means I cannot use my Ambitions EP (or any other EP's except perhaps WA, which I'm not interested in), so I'm playing only the base game. This solves almost every other problem. Update 1.12 was the update released coinciding with the Ambitions release and it introduced lots of bugs that have still never been addressed to my knowledge (at least up to update 1.15 at which point I gave up on updates as a solution), such as the run-everywhere bug and romantic interactions bug and too many other game killing bugs that made me want to just quit playing altogether. Many of those bugs are in the base game update itself, and occur whether you use the Ambitions EP or not, but installing Ambitions does introduce even more problems beyond that.
There remains a pathing issue that causes extreme lag, often manifesting itself most noticeably in sound malfunction, and sometimes prevents sims from doing what you want them to do. If you order your sim to do something and they stamp their feet complaining about a car blocking their path, this is your problem. If you cannot get into a rabbithole entrance, this MAY be your problem. In my experience, this issue has caused all the above and I suspect is also the culprit of isolated instances of finding sims stuck or standing in places they shouldn't be (like Bebe Hart standing in the sky above town reading a book). I have traced this pathing issue to inactive families having a car in their useable inventory. I'd recommend that when starting a new game, that you go thru each and every existing family moving all vehicles into their family inventory (storage) where they cannot access them. Once this is done, you can prevent the problem from occuring in the first place by putting all family vehicles in family storage before switching to a different active family. However, if you're trying to address this issue in a mature neighborhood where the problem has already manifested itself, it's more difficult to find the vehicles which have ghosted (become invisible) and have ended up stuck in unlikely places (such as rabbit-hole entries, residence entries, underground, etc). Finding all those can be tricky, but if you persist with experimentation until you have them all, you'll be amazed at the difference it makes. They'll still use cars that they don't own, probably related to their occupation and rank, but those are not a problem. It's cars that they own that are the problem.
Lastly, I use Windows XP home with only 4 gigs RAM, so I have to keep my town size limited or the game will become slow, anyway. I tolerate extremely slow loading so long as the game runs sufficiently well in play. When the town gets too big I start paring down the population by killing off the most irrelevant people (usually elders, then ugly children) and limiting households to one child to make sure that the town's next generation is smaller while still continuing the bloodlines of each family.
I'm no longer pulling my hair out. You may be reluctant to play this game in the same fashion as me, giving up on all the EP's that you've wasted money on, but for me the game is still good, still fun to play like this. You may want to consider it before turning your back on the whole thing, forever.
editting: added "(at least up to update 1.15 at which point I gave up on updates as a solution)"
If I had bought Sims 3 back in 2009 then I probably wouldn’t have bought so many EP/SPs for it. I tend to wait before buying a game, so that any bugs are ironed out. I carried on playing Sims 2 very happily until this January, so I waited two years and then got all the packs at the same time. I had no problems whatsoever with Sims 2, so I didn’t anticipate this situation (the only thing I didn’t like about Sims 2 was the fact that I couldn’t get all of the expansions because I have a Mac not PC).
Having played Sims 3 for a few months, I just don’t think there’s enough content in the base game alone to keep me playing - I really liked the expansions. It’s good that Zoid42071 has found a way to play without bugs wrecking his game, but I wouldn’t enjoy playing all the families and manually aging. In Sims 2 I sometimes played the houses in rotation to try to keep the neighbourhood in sync in terms of age and seasons, despite my strong preference for playing one family long-term, so one of the major attractions of Sims 3 was that this happens automatically. If I have to go round the houses, I might as well go back to non-glitchy Sims 2 house rotation. I’m grateful for the suggestions but I don’t think it would work out for me, just not my style of play.
The only thing EA seem to care about is money. I’ve seen a lot of other players on these forums who are very excited about the new EP and who don’t seem to have these game bugs, so I don’t have much hope that there’ll be any dent in EA’s profits if only a few of us hold out, although at least I know that I personally haven’t wasted any more money. Once the games I already have work right, then I might consider Generations.
Im on Windows Xp and I had minor problems with Sim 2 and not much with Sims 3
until the patch before LateNight and it seemed to affect people no matter if
they had addons or not. NOt all though Many are playing just find with cc you name it but there is this undercurrent that is quite strong of people who dont.
I also waited for many of the add ons for a long time
I think many people dont have problems and EA suffers in my opinion from terrible
customer service. They have it but if its not on their list of what to do they just ignore you like you dont exist.
I have written to the EA headquarters and never got a reply so I will again but this
time registered.
like you I could not play the way Zoid does but I think many of his suggestions are good.
I really believe people have to start writing and phoning EA HQ because it appears
no answer will be forth coming on this forum.
But if we look they cant even get this web page to work right so imagine when it comes to the game. A person on here cannot get to his web page You get the OOps
and he has complained and complained. At last he was told the reason is he bought
to much stuff from the EA store for the game Imagine gettting a answer like that
and to bad so sad. So he is writing a registered letter.
Its not they dont have CS. It helped me twice on Sims 2 but on this problem noted
above they seem not to have a clue.
WA has been out forever and it has 2 bad glitches and has had them since
it was out basically Still not fixed.
Another sign of To bad so sad.
I wont be buying the new addon and I really want to but fool me once shame on you
fool me twice shame on me.
When I start a new game, I immediately go through my town and delete every car
and every car space on the community lots, then on the individual family lots
and from the inventory of the families I have no intention of ever playing again.
This seems to have helped with the "lag" caused by piling up cars and stereos.
This spawning of cars and instruments, along with the broken excavation dating to Ambitions is not my fault nor my PC's fault and I have no CC or Mods and never
have had. EA has completely ignored the spawning problem and the excavation issue like they don't exist.
I play with Story Progression and Aging off.
I still believe this game is flawed out of the box but I'm no game developer and
don't have a clue "why".
I believe EA will continue to ignore these issues and the invisible/stuck Sims issue and pump out EP's and SP's and store stuff - as long as people keep buying.
Until the game starts to implode for more and more people, with the addition of every EP/SP, nothing is going to be done.
This thread and the previously "deleted" one is evidence enough of EA's mindset.
I feel that all I can really do at this point is keep testing the game as best I can and reporting my findings here, not give any of my own money to EA, try writing a letter of complaint perhaps.
It is possible that a patch will come and rescue our games... but it might be a while. It is also possible, I think, that the new EP or the ever increasing amount of Sims 3 content will break more and more players' games, in which case we may reach a tipping point and then EA will have to take notice. Looks like we are not yet there though.
While I still have a few odd things happen, I'm doing pretty good right now. I was up to Week 15, Day 3 (w15d3) in Twinbrook with the Goode and Bad household. They'd both married and divorced, and we'd had floor fishing and the mirror reflection not being consistent for framed artwork.
I decided to move them to Sunset Valley, and have been playing the two lads lag/freeze/invisible free. I'm up to w9d1. We're getting into the artistic side, doing more painting, sculpting, inventing, and guitar playing. There's a full garden, they each have their own police car to drive. Ambrosia is ready when needed, plenty of deathfish in the fridge. I'm learning how the Omni seeds work (last time I threw away all the bad, horrifying, stinky, whatever grades of Omni seeds, not realizing the cruddy ones work swell for books and candles).
I've been buying/trying out the things I hadn't done before, like buying more stuff from the Consignment store. Will get around to trying out selling stuff there too.
I've changed Sinbad's traits twice, complete personality overhaul, while leaving Goodwin's traits alone.
Sinbad fell through the stairs once, and required a reset. He was complaining about it being dark and the room being unfinished. Well, you're under the house buddy, it's going to be like that. The game did try to self-correct. At first he was standing on the ground under the house, which would have had him halfway showing inside the house, but when I clicked up a level, he popped up almost out of the foundation, to having just his ankles stuck in the floor. Going back down a level had him floating above the ground. So, reset him and he's worked fine since then.
What I haven't tried yet are children. Somehow that thing with the child being drawn to the fridge to be fed or picked up messes up any game if the child's bedroom is not on the same floor as the kitchen (the toddler at the top of the stairs problem).
No one has popped over their covers yet. I consider the game doomed at that point and don't bother to try anything else.
I'm not using any mods. I'm not deleting caches regularly. I'm just playing the game. So, why is it working NOW and was one bad thing after another previously? I don't know.
I'm using the pre-made sims, that is one difference. Not trying to create a new character to interact with the characters I already am familiar with in the towns.
I'm thinking there's hope for the game to work right, as it is working pretty much right for me at this time.
There's an old saying "Many hands make light work". The more of us that DOCUMENT the problems, take the screen shots, show the errors, the better able EA and anyone else can see the problems we're running into.
Some of the people who view our screenshots KNOW what the problem is, and can then share what the solutions are. Some folks track down the specific problem areas, identifying the problem.
EA has no control over what third parties do, so it's really important to continue posting problems and their solutions.
But EA certainly has control over what their own products should and shouldn't be doing, and again, document it with screen shots.
As it is, just about every day I can find something "not quite right" happening in the game. Like yesterday I noticed that the wind power generator's shadow is fixed, and doesn't show the revolving blades. I didn't notice this before when I had a bunch of wind power generators, because I'd stuck them on the roof at the Goth house and never noticed the shadows.
Document it all, via the screen shots. I haven't had accumulating cars (that I know of) in personal inventories, but a shot of the game window would show this, if someone can do that. I don't know how to do a screen shot from within the game that shows the control panel, but I think there is a way. I just take the picture from the game window when I need to show something else.
Try to get an image of every single problem you encounter. It might help with identifying the problem and finding the solution!
Even these problems, with invisible Sims, have been addressed by SimGuruHydra, though that was months ago, in my opinion not helpful at all, and did not actually seem to consider most of the problems that tend to go along with the mentioned "invisible sims issue". But at least, it was said that they are aware of the problem. And as mentioned in this thread, one of the previous patches (possibly the patch that caused these problems in the first place) listed all our issues in the things-being-fixed-in-this-patch info. I for one didn't even have these problems before that patch, though I barely played before then because I was still unhappy with losing my first household because of World Adventures and save error corruption. So I find it extremely hard to believe that they don't know about our problems. They know. We are just being left completely in the dark with our unplayable games.
Another thing I want to say - I appreciate all the suggestions having to do with playing a certain way to avoid these problems. I am very glad that some of you have been able to adapt your gameplay to enjoy playing without these problems showing up.
But, I am not going to change the way I play just to try to get around these problems. I would not buy Mario Kart to only play as Toad, drive in reverse, and only use green shells. I would not shell out the money for Rock Band, a guitar, a drum set, a microphone, and a keyboard, only to play Hip Hop songs on bass. I hope I'm making my point clear. :P It may work for some, but I think it is well within our rights as paying customers, having invested so much money into this franchise, to be able to play the way we want to play, especially when one of the larger selling points of this game is the freedom that exists to get creative with the way you play.
That said, I will not even consider paying for Generations, until I see evidence here that these issues have been solved. I might not even spend the money then.
I am sure EA is well aware of these problems, but I strongly believe they do not have a clue as to how to fix them. I think until they figure it out- they refuse to post here. It would mean owning up to their many flaws and it would be too humiliating for them.
EA- it's not so hard to admit that you are human- Say "I'm sorry and we are hard at work on a solution". See ? It's easy !
I also think- as another member posted- that the more EP's they put out - the more people will have all these problems. It's only a matter of time.
Meanwhile - I have sent out 3 letters to different dept. heads with "proof of delivery" signitures needed. How much you want to bet that they all get returned to sender ?
The Sims is the largest game franchise for EA and this is how they treat their customers? Snubbed... Still pushing product when there is already faulty product out there. Quite ridiculous...
I agree that we all need to take a stand and do something so that we are no longer ignored. COMPLAIN COMPLAIN COMPLAIN!!!!
It seems they're a little more inclined to offer "customer service" when another route is taken.
www.bbb.org
file a complaint
Documenting the problems, showing the images of all the things that can and do go wrong can also dissuade potential customers. It's not just buggy, it's THIS buggy, as the customers browse the photos.
There are dates associated with my screen shots, so on that particular day that I took the shot, that is what happened. Yes, it could be fixed, and then I would have a record of past bugs, things that don't happen anymore.
Did I KNOW whether or not World Adventures and Late Night would perform poorly on my computer? No. But I wasn't willing to chance it, based on the reviews.
If I had seen the photos of what can go wrong before buying the base game and Ambitions, I wouldn't have bought them either. But I didn't have those problems when I started playing back in December. They happened later on, with the last updates for the game(s).
It's another reason to document with photos. Save other people the expense and frustration. And if EA notices their sales plummeting, they'll have a real good idea why. It's their own fault, and they aren't doing what needs to be done.
The more screen shots there are out there of the big problems, the more likely they will come up in a search, and the less likely people will want to buy the games.
EA already has our money. But they won't get anymore of it from me until this current game works. And there's no reason for anyone else to spend money on a seriously problematic game.
Places that might let our voices be heard would be on game review sites. They'll be reviewing Medieval and Generations. The game review sites will probably have problems, just like many of us. And that will scare off a whole bunch of potential buyers.
My own review would be "It would be a lot of fun if it worked right."
crinrict's last post says it all. . .
I have believed for ages that EA has no clue how to fix the problems. No matter all the documenting and posting and pictures, etc., etc. We will not get a fix. :evil: Not being "techie", I am not SURE. . . but, I believe, as it does not seem to be the absolutely same thing that causes the freezing and disappearing every single time, there is nothing they can zero in on (assuming they were actually trying). I think one flaw links to and / or generates yet another.
Well, I, for one, have no intention of buying the new EPs and SPs. . . not throwing more money down a rat hole.
Sad
I have written up a post on invisible Sims in my blog but of course there's not much of a solution there. Link is in first post.
If anyone has a game saved BEFORE their sim has turned invisible AND the invisibility occurs every time they start said game, that's one I'd be interested in having. Let me know if you have such a game.
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My feeling is that this is fixable. EA just needs to do is devote some resources to it. Once a tipping point is reached, with sufficient players stopping spending money on the franchise so that profits are hit, then they might get their act together. It's a disgrace that they have released such a shoddy product. If I had other computer games that I liked to play then maybe I'd give up on it entirely, but I've been playing Sims games for over a decade and I really want it to work. While I can still get some enjoyment from playing a test game then I do think it's worth documenting and testing.
My friend had problems with other EA games - a football one in particular. Their customer support for that was also poor. However that was a stand-alone game in a series. Once the next game in that series is released, there is no real incentive for EA to fix the older versions. However Sims 3 is current and it is incomplete - by which I mean that they will want to release more EPs, more SPs, mores Store content, and they will want us to buy it. So at some point, they'll need to devote the necessary resources to fixing these issues. I hope so anyway!
Pictures of my sims will be on my page
I have a game like that, I just so happened to back up the file before it went crazy. Game has now become pretty much unplayable, I will probably have to try reinstalling, but if it's the game file that's glitched and not the game entirely will it make a difference? I really don't want to lose my legacy family...
I have lost game after game to this/these bugs.
The first time it happened to me I, by elimination, found that it was a crib that was causing the cascade effect. The game thought the baby was in the crib but it was on the floor and anytime anyone tried to interact of even think about the baby they froze and/or disappeared. I managed to rectify that game by using cheats and deleting the bugged crib. It then happened again a few game days later but I couldn't find the root object.
On subsequent games I have tried to find the object or sim which is causing this cascade of bugs, even deleting everything my household owns in attempt to locate it, but I've never been able to fix the corruption since.
NB: I say "cascade" because I have noticed that once another sim interacts in any way with a bugged object or sim - even thinks about them - they bug out too. So one bugged object soon becomes the whole town bugged as they interact.
I find it outrageous that a mod doesn't reply to this and the many other threads made about this game-breaking issue. I also find it ridiculous that it isn't mentioned in the Knowledge Base - as if it doesn't exist.
If only they could code something which times out when a sim tries to interact with something but fails and freezes it may help.
Anyway, I had to rant after just losing another dynasty to this bug.
EA are one of the biggest game companies on the planet and have huge resources at their disposal and yet they allow flagship IP of theirs to be rendered unplayable for many by this bug and yet they continue to release EPs and variations (medieval).
Signed: another ex-customer.
Could you upload that savegame (zip-up the whole folder from that savegame) to some file sharing site like mediafire and post the link here ? I would really like to look at that.
I don't think reinstalling will help.
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Resetting him fixed his invisibility and I ran a "reset everything" with MasterController and ran Overwatch cleanups twice. The lag persisted, however. I have a save, but as I said, it's in a custom world.
I also ran the program on my Mac that monitors CPU and memory usage and was quite surprised that my so-called mid-range machine was actually not working to its full capacity. The Sims used some 2 GB of RAM (out of 4) and there was still 1 GB left and the CPU only peaked occasionally at 75% (2.8 GHz Core 2 Duo), so no CPU overload and still enough RAM left.
I packed my family after that and will move it to another world. If the problem persits there, too, I'm done with that game.
EDIT: Iforgot to mention that by the time this whole disaster began I also experienced sudden jumps in save file sizes, like from 38 to 50 and then back to 38 MB.
pages.prodigy.net/bah53/BAH53/shared/Sims3Save_Ariel.ace
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