Gameplay bugs EA needs to fix Some gameplay bugs are annoying and other things they need to fix that aren't really bugs but here are some I've encountered. I invited the nanny to a party. She proceeded to go to the frige and make herself dinner as a party guest. She got stuck in front of the counter after processing the food and couldn't/wouldn't move or leave. She was in front of the frige so I moved the kitchen to another room so my other sims could get and make food but she still couldn't move. She would fall asleep and stand up and pea on the floor over and over. I finally had to go into 'move_objects on' mode and delete her. Teddy bear - When a sim picks up the teddy to "talk through" to the baby they turn the teddy around in their hands. If they happen to set it in front of a wall or something it then faces the opposite direction and the sims can no longer pick it up. Hesitation in picking up the baby/toddler out of the crib. It takes waaay too long for a sim to stand there in front of the crib and pick up a child. When you've Q'd in to go to the bathroom or bed, why do the sims still make a fuss? If they have to go, then they should just go. Getting one sim to change a babies diaper when 3 or more other sims are in the house is sometimes almost impossible. When a babies diaper needs to be changed, why do the other 3 or more sims in the house simotaniously want to feed it? You can't click each of thier personal wills off fast enough to get one sim to change a diaper or poddy train in time before the toddler goes in it's pants. In the painstaking process everyones stats suffer for the benefit of one child. Don't buy a high chair! I've seen the nanny in an endless loop putting toddler in and out of the high chair. It is better for toddler to drink bottles layed on the floor than for nanny to place toddler in the high chair and feed it. All user actions should always over-ride all other sims actions. User commands do over-ride the actions of the sim your dealing with but they need to make it over-ride the sim you want them to deal with such as when the toddler is learning with it's toys. The only over-ride action I've seen with this is giving toddler a bottle. But say you want to poddy train the toddler when it's learning on its toys, you have to stop toddler first before your other sim will poddy train. Had sim teen sneak out and never came home. Lost a couple hours of play after seeing 5 stats go completely red and had to exit without saving. Nanny to toddler bug. Nanny was stuck in front of toddler so I dismissed her but couldn't get any of my other sims to pick up a toddler out in the open and I couldn't get the toddler to move. The toddlers stats went down and was starving. The toddler up and moved when the social worker came and then the social worker took him away. Was very pissed. Had to exit without save and lost and hour and a half. I know I've encountered more bugs but just can't remember them all. Basically this game is very buggy and glitchy.
They are waiting for the baby/toddler to get into position to be picked up. It's just the way interactions are designed, I don't think there's any way around that. Well, sometimes even when I'm on my way to the bathroom, I still have to stop and cross my legs for a second... This hasn't been true in my experience. My toddlers always stop what they're doing when another Sim is waiting to interact with them. They are actively working on a patch and are looking for input from users on what bugs there are and what steps cause them so they can figure out where the problems are. I suggest submitting each of the bugs you've encountered, along with as much info as possible on how to reproduce them, here: http://thesims2.ea.com/community/qa_form.php
Party guests normally don't do this at all. I think that's a bug specific to the nanny's behavioral AI, even when not on duty. The nanny is crazy. The teddy bear is quite the buggy item. Many bugs are currently associated with it. I, myself, was not tempted to buy it, given that so many other toys gave skillpoints...and more fun! Yeah, I don't get why this happens at all. Sims whine too much. That goes without saying. They whine about being hungry even when they're not really. And spend their precious energy whining about being tired. I've seen a Sim actually GET OUT OF BED to complain that he's sleepy before collapsing on the floor. Why didn't he just stay in bed?!? Sims are lousy parents. Once a child is born, Free Will should be deactivated until the kids reach child: Otherwise they'll psychotically attempt to forcefeed the poor creature until it explodes. It usually responds to the ministrations of the psycho-sim parents by puking on them. I can't say I blame it. I've never even been tempted to buy a high-chair. Hell, my Sims have long since eschewed the pedestrian and conformist standard of eating at tables. It's slower and less efficient than eating at a bench. Like the "whine" action? **** straight. That's not so bad. It's not quite as bad as trying to override a berserk kidnapper who's actively in the process of abducting your children. Life is like a sandwich. Some days you eat the sandwich, other days the sandwich eats you. Generally, a sneak-out ends at 0400. If they don't return by then, they're definitely AWOL. The nanny is psychotic, like all uncontrolled Sims around small children. Visitors are even worse, since they manhandle your children and then abduct them, stuff them into packing crates, and mail them back, often leaving them permanently traumatized. I give this game 3.2 Ethiopian Outhouses. It's not the worst I've seen, but 3.2x as buggy as an Ethiopian outhouse is not a shining example of well-tested play.
That almost makes sense, except that the baby just kinda lies there immobile the whole time, which contradicts this, since the baby does not appear to have any movement states beyond twitching, which doesn't seem to affect things when the baby is on the floor.... One of these days when you stop and do that, you're going to have an accident. I'll try to be there to point and laugh. And then gossip about it to all your friends. Bwahahaha. This is true if the toddler is acting autonomously, but the toys are locking interactions. This is a good thing, because it means the kid can be securely parked there, and his attention will be largely fixed on his task until you take him off. Yeah, they claim that, but that has all the markings of a link to /dev/null. I think it's just propaganda that they put there to appease the easily deceived. I stand by my opinion that this is simply propaganda, a smokescreen crafted to distract you from the real issues. I have yet to see proof to the contrary, like evidence there actually *IS* work being done. Like I said, it's classic ploy: Let the people think that they actually have input, and they're less likely to riot. How do you think "democracy" works?
Have you helped get the problem fixed by filling out the feedback submission form: http://thesims2.ea.com/community/qa_form.php It's really interesting seeing all these bugs. The only bug I've encountered has been the lack of "plan outfit" for toddlers. But I figured out that if I buy an outfit I do want that toddler to wear when he/she is still a baby, it becomes the "default." The difference may be in the person's playing style or in their computer cinfiguration itself. I don't envy Maxis trying to sort it out.
Sure. /dev/null, for those of us fluent in unix-speak, is a black hole from which things you put in disappear forever, never to be heard from again. If I redirect standard output to /dev/null, all of that program's standard output disappears into the ether, never to be heard from again. Hasta la vista, baby. My proposal is that this so-called QA form is just that: A little form intended to make the users feel better, and disguise the fact that they actually have no real input. Because, let's face it: With so many people banging on it, it's going to be deluged in about a mile-wide mass of crapola. I don't seriously believe that they'd actually read all of that: It would take forever, and we wouldn't see a patch out until 2032. Therefore, it's obviously a pacifier intended to make users feel better.
Ah I get it now, however that isn't like Maxis or EA. It would be unwise to ignore the community considering The Sims is the largest, best selling product for EA.
JMP is clearly not a happy bunny. The EA feedback form is an excellent tool for reporting technical bugs because it requires accurate system information reporting. People who use this form properly to report correctable bugs in the actual mechanics of the game's operation will be providing the maxoids with invaluable guidlines in choosing the most problematic areas to address in the creating the first patch. However the bulk of JMP's complaints seem to me, to have much more to do with the sometimes tiresome idosyncrasies that are bound to arise in a game such as this. The Sims franchise is not and never has been a city/empire building game. Nor is it an RPG. Although in many senses it can be used as either. What it is, is an animated adventure/simulation. Obviously every action a sim can make has to be separately programmed. In order to avoid all potential issues of the sort complained of by JMP, Maxis would have had to provide five or ten times more animations than they actually have. I have little doubt that many of the missing actions will surface in the EPs as happened with the original game. JMP's complaints are unfair. The expansion pack concept is brilliant both commercially as well as technically. An EP not only allows the Maxoids to introduce new objects and new gameplay options but also to make tweaks that improve the game's overall playability. They also help with the company's balance sheet. So ... of course EA is making money but there aren't many games that also give you 20+MB of webspace for your 50-ish bucks. Instead of whingeing I think we would all benefit more by discussing "work arounds" for gameplay elements that are frustrating and "buggy" rather just complain about "how wrong EA got it". And I'm just saying that cos I'm now a mod, either.
No, no I am not. If I were the Social Bunny, I would beat you up and steal your pants. It seems simultaneously innocent and nefarious at the same time precisely because of the latter reason. Wait, what? What are you talking about? I haven't complained about anything of the sort. Oh! You mean you're talking about the objects I pointed out were not present? No, that was not a COMPLAINT, that was the cynicism of unsurprisal: I was completely and utterly unsurprised by their decision to do so. Actually, they omitted less than I expected. However, every single omission, to the last, happened to be on my list of things I suspected they would omit. I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever. In fact, I can state with complete confidence that many of those actions are, in fact, already completed, and WERE, in fact, already completed prior to the game ever being released, and were, in fact, DELIBERATELY omitted. I wish I could say I was shocked and outraged by this, but shock and outrage are reactions for people far less jaded than I am. I disagree. I think my complaints are perfectly fair. Actually, I'm not really complaining. Complaining would imply that I expect something to be done about it. I'm merely ranting about the matter. And 20+MB of webspace? Pssh. Frickin' Google gives you a frickin' gig of storage space for free. Am I supposed to be impressed by a piddly 20MBs of space? Get real. Yes, we can do that, too. But why not do both at the same time? It's more fun that way! I mean, sure, I could give you workarounds I've found, but where's the *FUN* in doing so if I can't attach it to a 3-page rant?
Meh, I'm not sure if something special is supposed to happen at 750, but at the present rate, I figure it'll only take a few weeks. No hurry.
I was being real. Google's gmail service gives 1GB for email + attachment storage ... not a lot of bandwidth involved is involved in storage. Active webspace for things like 10MB movies and 2MB lots would rapidly use up the paltry bandwidth allowances of most cheap/free web hosting packages. EA are to be lauded for providing a free global exchange for custom content and story/movie sharing. Ok fair enough ... but maybe Josh should change your status to iconoclast though.
That's what YOU think. I know of some people who are doing very, very, inappropriate things not permissible for discussion on these forums with those 1 GB storages. Just remember: "Storage" means that some means of RETRIEVAL must exist. Besides, in exchange for getting that active webspace for hosting TS2 stuff, EA demands my soul. No thank you. You're a mod, why don't YOU do it?
Mods do not have untrammelled access ... why would I want it? As for EA demanding your soul ... well it is well known that Arch Criminal fiends are always paranoid (in addition to being lovers of white Abyssinian cats and prone to the dumb trick of explaining in tedious detail to the clean-cut superhero, exactly how they propose to take over the world thereby giving the said super hero time to escape and save the world in the nick of time) ... but then, as an entertaining Social Bunny, with strong iconclastic tendencies, you knew that anyway ... eh?
It's been stated before that Maxis won't get into the web hosting business. Something about it making them like an ISP... which I have no clue and don't ask me why they said that. I'm just quoting em
My guess would be that it has to do with potential lawsuits and other such legal entanglements like copyright infringement and whatnot, because people just love to sue over every possible little thing. I can't say I blame Maxis for wanting nothing to do with this. And I have a new title, it seems. Meh. Pessimist: A well-informed optimist. As opposed to optimist: A loser who doesn't realize it yet.
