Trapped by an invisible wall?

[Rabid_Ewok]

I'll try my best to explain:

Four Sims were on the second (top) floor of the house, one is an elder, one is an adult, two are children. They are all stuck in the hallway around the staircase. For whatever reason, nobody will go down the stairs. I tried making the hall (on both floors) bigger, that didn't work. So I built another staircase in the elder's bedroom, the adult managed to walk down them, but the other three are still stuck. I decided to lengthen the hallway back and add another staircase there, but again, nobody went down. There aren't any doors or gates in the way. So I tried getting rid of the others, having one person in the hallway, yet he STILL wouldn't go down the stairs! Throughout the entire situation the Sims were complaining and the 'can't walk there' bubble appeared over their heads numerous times, and there clearly was nothing in the way, nothing at all. No matter what I do the Sims will not go down the stairs!

Note: The staircase is the generic brown one that comes in some houses in Pleasantville.

At this point I am thinking about just letting them die. But having half the family die off would cripple the family's income, and make the remaining half of the family go crazy. The kids are missing school, the elder is missing work, and they are slowly starving to death. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated, I have no idea what to do.


Thanks.

[babewithbrains_14]

Hmmm. The only solution I can think of is to use the moveobjects on cheat, and the go into rewards/buy/build and see if you can move the kids and the elder downstaris and into that kitchen!

[horselovinmonkey]

is there anyway to delete walls once there built?!

[babewithbrains_14]

Hmmm. I don't think it's a wall that's a problem here. I think what is meant is that the poor ickle simmies are being held in place by a... forcefield if you will. Walls can be deleted, ctrl and click, but unfortunatly I don't that would help. :(

Good idea though!

[gyro_kisschasy]

is there something in the way at the bottom of the stairs preventing the sims to walk down. I once had a problem like this but my sim was trying to go upstairs. It turned out that i had forgotten to put flooring at the top of the stairs, stupid i know but that was the problem. Try deleting the stair case and putting a new one in... thats all i can think of

Gyro_kisschasy
xxx

[Mirelly]

Oops missed this one. The easiest cure for this problem is to use the moveobjects on cheat to move the stuck sims. If that fails use the boolprop testingcheatsenabled true cheat to teleport them to the mailbox. :)

[ducky_234]

you sould be really carful with that cheat if u transport them to the mail box it could damage ur game badly in a way:knockedout:

[ASHMEANS r a d]

yeah.. the boolProp is risky so be sure you save before you use it.. i've learned the hard way what not saving will do.. eek =\

[Mirelly]

yeah.. the boolProp is risky so be sure you save before you use it.. i've learned the hard way what not saving will do.. eek =\

Not sure I completely agree with this advice. If one feels the need to use testingcheatsenabled it will be because the game has screwed up in some undefined way that defies the conventional cures. Now the point is this:
Does the player

(a) Exit without saving and regain control of his/her sims but lose all the progress made since the last save (that last bit is the significant bit!)
or (b) try a kill or cure approach using boolprop?If the player saves before using boolprop all they are doing is fixing the problem permanently into the game. If one is going to be that cautiously wussy it would be better to bite the bullet and go with option (a)

Of course boolprop is risky, but not very so long as one doesn't save one's game after using it until one is absolutely sure that problem has been cured without adding further troubles. A great many hacked/modded objects use the (principles of the) testingcheats to perform their magic.

Using boolprop should therefore be regarded as a gamble, taken intelligently, in that one invests a little time and effort in the hope of preserving a great investment of gamepaying time. So if your game has somehow gotten stuck and you've only been playing for and hour or so it is better to just exit without saving and try not to allow the same circumstances to recur. If for some reason you've been playing the same house for many hours (and that flies in the face of decades of computing experience that insists that regular saving of work is not just good practise but the only sane way to work) then boolprop is for you cos you're obviously a danger-freak who loves to take risks ... :rolleyes: