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    Sim died, but why was she deleted from the game?

    SimmervilleSimmerville Posts: 11,669 Member
    edited May 2022 in The Sims 4 General Discussion
    She was elderly and I guess she was old enough to go, I just was a tad surprised as her life bar was probably not full the last time I checked. 13 years since her elderly birthday seems fine, though.

    But - I can't find her urn anywhere. Assuming she was not at home when dropping dead. What I don't get is that she was removed from the family tree, her bed is no longer assigned to her (ghost) - everything looks like if she never existed. Nobody in her household has any sign of sadness. I guess they can't really mourn someone who is non-existing according to the game.

    I can put a generic grave stone next to the stone of her long gone hubby. No problem, although I always prefer the real thing.

    But why was she removed from the game? Other sims died around the same time, but they were not removed. I have no sim limits activated, did not patch my game since before Story progression was introduced, and I don't use MCCC or other story progression mods.

    Is it a random thing? Game thinking - hey, let's surprise this simmer by removing a sim?

    She was one of the sims I created back in 2014, probably one of the last of them to go. So I'd say she should be "solid" enough to follow the normal patterns...
    Simmerville on Youtube | My blog is updated weekly: Simmerville's Sims<br>a.jpg
    Post edited by Simmerville on

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      telemwilltelemwill Posts: 1,752 Member
      I think this is a bug. I've not experienced it myself, but I have seen YouTube videos where this happened.
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      babajaynebabajayne Posts: 1,866 Member
      It sounds like sim culling to me. I don’t know enough about it to explain very well, but I’ve seen the subject come up. It doesn’t seem to matter what your sim count is because the game has a limit on how many of your sims plus other sims it can handle (I don’t know the number, sorry). If you’re playing a save from 2014 my guess is that you have a lot of sims in it. Maybe if you delete some nobodies you can prevent future culling?
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      TammorsTammors Posts: 357 Member
      It happened to one of my vampires once. He just had toddler twins, and the game killed him off.

      I saved my game to a separate folder, then reloaded an old save where he was still alive and saved him to the gallery. Then I moved my new save back into the save folder, loaded it up, and downloaded him from the gallery to put him back in the game.

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      Chaotic_MoiraChaotic_Moira Posts: 482 Member
      If she was in a played household I would guess a bug. If not, then I would guess culling. Culling should only happen to unplayed households, and with ghosts you don't strengthen a connection to.

      Here is a guide on culling if you want to understand it better. I was seriously confused about it and as a rotational player, I found it a bit stressful, until someone showed me this:
      https://sims4.crinrict.com/eng/2016/06/culling-what-is-it-and-what-does-it-do/
      Features I'd like brought back from the dead.
      | Picture in Picture mode | Custom Paintings | Preset scenarios for resident sims | Placing my own lots |
      | Saving my own Buy Mode collections! | Saving an outfit in CAS | CaSt. Smaller is ok | Open World |
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      SimmervilleSimmerville Posts: 11,669 Member
      edited May 2022
      Thanks all! She was definitely in a played household, and I think it must be a bug. She was probably meant meat to die, culling would not wait for or them to die, right?

      Anyway, even if there is a tech limit to how many sims a save can handle, I find it kind of strange that the game would not at least give a warning - "hey simmer, we refuse to tell you the exact limit of sims in this game, but you are getting close...". What if culling was a thing due to hidden limit, and I added a new pack with a bunch of 20 new premade sims? Should the game cull 20 of my old played sims to make room? I doubt it.

      I might keep looking for her gravestone, but at this time I just see it as a story - her son is frustrated because she wandered a lot in her last year and did not always remember where she lived. So, if anyone see her urn, pls call ... ;)
      Post edited by Simmerville on
      Simmerville on Youtube | My blog is updated weekly: Simmerville's Sims<br>a.jpg
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      babajaynebabajayne Posts: 1,866 Member
      Could she have been culled after she died (no longer a Played sim)?
      I think @Stormkeep knows about this stuff.
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      rudolpharudolpha Posts: 998 Member
      Some of my uni sims graduate even though I don't play them. They get put in the pool of NPCs once they leave the dorm and every once in a while they have been culled. This also happened once to one of my unplayed but housed sims but it may have been a nhood stories bug.
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      StormkeepStormkeep Posts: 7,632 Member
      Unless she was protected from culling (by being in My Households) she could have been culled. The game does not care about your feelings when it comes to culling, and it doesn't warn you when you approach the limit. I'm almost always at the limit in my game and it culls willy nilly, though rarely does it cull any sims that I particularly care about, because I keep those in My Households and have the limit for that set to unlimited.

      Thing is, when a sim dies, they change households automatically....to a hidden household of dead people. So even if they are protected, once they die, they aren't anymore. Though, honestly, I'm fairly certain ghosts do not follow the normal culling process and instead go through the "losing connection" process, where you have time to either strengthen their connection or not, as you wish.

      So, I'm going to say a game bug...unless she may have died a ways back in time in terms of time-passed in game, and it just took you a while to notice it. In that case, she was culled. Because dead sims aren't in their protected household any longer if you don't do anything about it.
      This post will be edited by StormKeep at some point.
      2c2ab3785fad83173d9a155efa4afd1fc99b9595.jpg
      The Winters family Tree --- My Mods
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      Chaotic_MoiraChaotic_Moira Posts: 482 Member
      rudolpha wrote: »
      Some of my uni sims graduate even though I don't play them. They get put in the pool of NPCs once they leave the dorm and every once in a while they have been culled. This also happened once to one of my unplayed but housed sims but it may have been a nhood stories bug.

      This wouldn't be a bug. Sims can be culled even if they are housed if they are unplayed. The only sims protected from culling are the ones in the My Household area of the Manage Households menu. I believe the game puts any played households into the My Households area by default. But if you want to protect a household, you can manually add them here without playing them and then they would be protected as well. Also ghosts, like @Stormkeep mentioned are handled by strengthening the connection instead.
      Features I'd like brought back from the dead.
      | Picture in Picture mode | Custom Paintings | Preset scenarios for resident sims | Placing my own lots |
      | Saving my own Buy Mode collections! | Saving an outfit in CAS | CaSt. Smaller is ok | Open World |
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