The Sims

When my infant aged up to toddler, she immediately after aged up to child, etc, up to elder. I was worried she'd die, but she stopped there. Cas.fulleditmode let me age her back down to toddler, but still, wtf? Has anyone else got this bug?

The designs were created by /u/HotCryptographer2090 on Reddit. GameRant wrote an article mentioning their designs.

/u/HotCryptographer2090 has created several other neat room designs that can be found on Reddit. Like this one for example. Great if you want inspiration for what to do with extra space on a lot or awkwardly sized rooms.

This was originally posted on Reddit by u/Slebba

These are the patch notes from the news section of each game on Steam. Considering the amount of crash-related fixes I thought some individuals might find it interesting. Would you want to see more patch notes posted in this community? Let me know.

If you are still running into issues with The Sims 2 I would recommend checking out The Sims 2 Starter Pack on GitHub. Up until the release of the legacy collection edition it was the recommended way to play the game across various Sims 2 communities. I imagine several fixes may still translate over to this new version.

The same individual also has a version for the original Sims. The GitHub page can be found here but I haven't seen it as widely recommended. If you have or do try it please respond below or post to the community about your experience.

The Sims

Fixed Issues:

• Alt+Tab or Alt+Enter can sometimes cause a crash

• Alt+Enter can sometimes cause the Windows title bar to be hidden

• Alt+Enter can sometimes not toggle between full screen and windowed modes

• On some systems, The Sims can appear to launch and then immediately exit (no splash screen displayed)

• The Sims should now launch in most situations

• In some cases where there is an underlying graphics issue, The Sims will display a message

• Some players are unable to click on various parts of the neighborhood map

• The travel screen, when traveling between neighborhoods/worlds, can sometimes appear garbled or glitched

• The Sims might crash if you are not on the default neighborhood, interact with another Sim, and then save

• When using Alt+Enter to cycle window and zoom sizes, the HUD could be clipped. At this zoom level, The Sims will now instead clip from the top of the screen.

• In some situations in windowed mode the title bar might not be visible

• The Family friends counter could sometimes not be visible

• A memory issue could lead to various unexpected behaviors after playing for a period of time (random crashes, sluggish performance, missing objects, etc)

• The mood level arrows and mood bars had visual artifacts in some cases

• The mouse scroll wheel could take a lot of clicks to zoom

• Some players were encountering a “Vulkan device” error at launch

General Notes:

• Several players have had problems (e.g. walls, floors, objects not showing up; game not launching; other oddities) that are addressed by updating graphics drivers to the latest versions. Please make sure your drivers are up to date.

• The Sims game window is of a fixed size that can’t have its basic properties changed after it has launched. Moving the window from a monitor to another with a different, lesser resolution can lead to unexpected results, possibly even crashes. If you want to run The Sims on that second monitor please use the option “-monitor:” to force it to launch on the other monitor. “0” is your primary monitor, a second monitor is “1” and so on. We are investigating adding this as a menu option in the future.

• In some situations, players have noted that music only plays in Live mode. Please check your computer sound options and make sure that everything is properly configured (e.g. on a 5.1 surround system make sure that your center speaker is functioning).

• You might be prompted to “Enable the help system” every time you return to a house. This is the game trying to have you complete the tutorial. This will continue to happen until you complete the tutorial.

• There are some hardware configurations that we are seeing a disproportionate number of errors on and are actively investigating. Systems based on Intel ARC GPUs, Snapdragon laptops with Qualcomm Adreno X1-85 GPU, NVIDIA T600 GPU laptops are being investigated

• Users that have experienced problems with getting an error indicating a lack of Vulkan compatible devices have reported that in some cases removing "OpenCL™, OpenGL®, and Vulkan® Compatibility Pack" can resolve the issue.

• When you want to import Sims or Houses, the game could look in the wrong directory to find them. You can now work around this by placing them in “Program Files/Maxis/The Sims/UserData/Import”

• We are investigating an issue where traveling between worlds can result in crashes in some situations

The Sims 2

Fixed Issues:

• Alt-Tab or Alt+Enter can sometimes cause a crash

• Some players on EA App received an error message indicating that certain needed files were corrupt

• The game would sometimes crash after creating a family

• The game sometimes launched at a small resolution (800x600) and then scaled that small format to fill the entire monitor

• In certain situations the game will launch and then immediately show a “DirectX” error, requiring use of the “-w” option to work around the problem

• Sometimes a Sim (or multiple Sims) would disappear after the player moves to another lot or neighborhood, or after leaving and rejoining the game despite saving

• Sometimes non-adult Sims (children, pets) would disappear

• Some interactions that result in a transferable reward (e.g. a dog returns from work) can cause the game to crash

• Addressed some infinite loading screen issues

• Addressed some situations related to the error “Some needed files were corrupted during the installation”

• Addressed some situations where the game could terminate with a pop-up message when creating a family or when entering a pre-made lot

• The game could get stuck on the color swap tool

• The Sims’ voices could be of low quality

• The Sims’ voices could be very quiet

• The custom skin window couldn’t be closed in some cases

• The “Graphics Rules.sgr” file was missing a rule that could cause “D3D” error messages

• During the Alien Abduction cutscene, sometimes audio could drop out and a Sim could reset

• Sims could be unable to eat cooked food

• The game could sometimes present a loading screen that could not progress

• Sims could sometimes disappear

General notes:

• Several players have had problems that are addressed by updating graphics drivers to the latest versions. Please make sure your drivers are up to date.

• Remember that the “boolProp testingCheatsEnabled” cheat will cause the game to periodically show various dialogue boxes with debugging information in them. The cheat is working as expected.

• We are investigating an issue where during certain cinematic events (such as Alien Abduction), the Sim can be reset and the event fails. While we are investigating this, you can work around the issue by making certain there are no other Sims on the lot to observe the event.

• In some cases, issues that have been addressed might have corrupted game saves before they were addressed (e.g. when Sims could disappear). In these cases you should try starting with a fresh save as the game won’t be able to correct the corruption, and working with corrupted saves can lead to unexpected behavior.

• While the Alien Abduction scene now works, the scene is still missing the alien baby. We’re working on that. In the meanwhile you will have the alien baby in the game once the scene is done.

• Some players have tried using Windows shortcut keys to move the full-screen game to another monitor. When in full screen mode the game should not be moved to another monitor or this may cause issues.

Sorry it's a photo of a screen!

To summarize some points from the video:

• Some of the original Sim's issues with larger resolutions, such as the UI appearing small or not being able to zoom in all the way, can be fixed by setting your monitor to 720p.

• Both games have issues crashing.

• The Sims 2 version has all the DLC except the IKEA pack which can be re-added with a fan patch.

• It is not really recommended now until more of the bugs and stability issues are fixed. Before you buy it LGR recommends checking out the refund policy.

Did I miss anything else?

If I recall correctly this pack was also missing from the Ultimate Collection version that was given away for free on Origin years ago.

This trailer was included in the original release of Simcity 3000 in 1999.

High quality AI upscaled version of the trailer

Simcity 3000 US Alternate release Jewel Case back cover with The Sims promo:

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/25106216

Apparently they are compatible with modern operating systems but I'm wondering to what degree and if the modded releases fans put together (The Sims 2 Starter Pack a prime example) are going to be better in some aspects.

I thought this was kind of neat and might save someone the time of downloading individual files. There's a list of mods and a Google Drive download link for the pack in the post.

I don't frequently see mod packs being put together for Sims games. Even repacks of the games typically only contain stability related mods. I imagine the lack of packs or bundles has to do a lot with mod authors putting out explicit disclaimers that they don't want their mods redistributed and posted elsewhere.

In The Sims you never really have to worry about taking a step back in life like downsizing to a smaller apartment or moving back in with your parents. I was wondering if you think EA will ever try to break away from this?

Things like a lack of career advancement, job uncertainty, and pay not scaling with rent hikes could be a neat twist. I feel like a lot of people use The Sims for a bit of escapism and things have gotten significantly more cartoony with The Sims 4 so I don't really see it happening.

I could see them adding mental disorders or homelessness but I feel like they'd whitewash a lot of it. In the case of homelessness for example I could see them depicting it like camping or off the grid living.

Maybe one of the Sims rivals that's being developed will tackle this? Who knows?

Some of this may have been implement to various degrees. I still mostly play The Sims 3. I've tried getting into 4 over the years but it's never stuck for me and it's been a while since my last attempt.

I'm just imaging a Sim with the sad moodlet sitting on a box, in a room full of other boxes, overwhelmed and eating spaghetti.

Maybe various skills could play a role in how these actions go?

A low handiness skill could mean you run the risk of breaking your furniture or assembling it incorrectly. A low athletic skill could cause you to scratch or put holes in your walls. A low charisma skill might mean you can't get people to help you without the promise of ordering pizza.

For context I was thinking about The Sims 2's IKEA Home Stuff DLC and how in The Sims Bustin' Out for the GBA you unpacked your furniture from a crate. It got me wondering how moving mechanics would work in the Sims 3 or 4.

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/life-by-you-is-cancelled.1688889/

https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2024/06/paradox-interactive-completely-cancelled-life-by-you/

Kind of disappointed about this, I was hoping it would provide a little bit of competition to EA. At least Paralives is still supposed to released, and my copy of The Sims 3 still works as well!

Sulsul Simmers, MarviSims here! I recently started a new website called RetroSimsMods, where you can download new houses and (soon) objects for TS1 and TS2. With this little website, I just want to keep these awesome games alive and well. Feel free to take a look if that sounds fun! 😁

🔗 Visit RetroSimsMods.com

I hate my sim carrying loads of stuff for all sorts of reasons (I think it creates lag, I hate having to scroll through a load of items to find what I want, there are bugs where the whole inventory disappears when you do certain things and that seems to happens less when they carry less stuff), so I try to keep the bare minimum on my sim:

• Hikon QX40di Gladiator camera
• Collection Helper
• Potent Invigorating Elixirs (means you never need to sleep)
• Vials of Potent Bliss (cures loneliness and stress)
• Wish Enhancing Serums (doubles all wish points, including lifetime wish for 24hr)
• Jars of Potent Friendship (make almost any sim a good friend, except some NPCs like paparazzi)
• Showers in a can (quick clean)
• Pemmican (quick meal + special moodlet)
• Death flower
• Flame fruit (gives positive moodlet)

But I do like to keep things just in case (as you do), so in their house I have different treasure chests for different things like seeds, gems, metals, inventions, relics, etc where I store most things (this allows for keeping much more junk which also potentially creates lag, but then, so do most things in the game lol and this way it isn't cluttering my space), and then my family inventory in buy mode is mostly free gifts my sim gets from being a celebrity, which I used to keep but now mostly sell.

So, does anyone else have these kinds of systems, or do other people generally not give it much thought at all? 😂

Full length trailer for Sims 5?

Or last ditch attempt to make Sims 4 look more appealing?

I don't see them going back further, and as someone who never moved past Sims 3 (and who generally hates this lazy genre of movie, but especially when it's based on a game that has such open and individually adaptable play), this has very little appeal to me personally.

Thoughts from fellow simmers?

The Steam page describes it as

Tiny Life is a fun simulation game that aims to capture the essence of games like The Sims series, but in an isometric pixelart style.

In the game, you control a set of people that live together in a household. You take care of their daily needs, build their skills, forge new relationships... or just mess up their entire life in whatever way you can think of!

It's currently on sale but from the looks of the reviews it's still pretty far in early access and missing some components you would expect in a Sims-style game.

I'm curious if anyone has given it a go and what they thought

I used to at most do a basic floor plan in ms paint on a 64x64 grid I had saved lol but the more I play around with constrainfloorelevation and the endless design options it opens up, the more I find I need to plan, and the harder it is to get my head around what I should do first, because it becomes so much harder to add and change things later on.

I just completely scrapped a lot I'd been trying to figure out for ages because I realised I'd screwed something up it would take starting almost from scratch to fix, I do want to start again, and to avoid this happening again I've tried laying it out in sketches and diagrams but with having both the terrain and the levels of the build shifted and sometimes overlapping (or, in the case of basement and terrain - not allowed to overlap, which is mostly what's messing me up lol), it gets so confusing and my brain just fries 😂

Probably just going to have to jump in and try to figure it out in practice.

Just a funny thought I had before bed the other night. You could go through and get dumped to some location on the map with a positive moodlet that says Being John Malkovich.

After a certain amount of uses you could make decisions like you can with the catacombs or time machine.

I moved my Sim into a house boat so he could escape his several illegitimate children but the lag got so bad living at sea I stopped playing.

I'm just imaging Sims shoving hotdogs in a coffee maker, fish in the dishwasher, and a turkey in the microwave for 10 hours.

They could use recipes from the internet like instant potatoes made with Monster Energy drinks, hamburger smoothies, bologna sushi, and NyQuil chicken. Imagine the possibilities for new moodlets.

This whole idea could bleed over into other skills. Low mixology skills? Whiskey in a shot glass made out of spam.

Paralives describes itself on Steam as

Paralives is an upcoming doll house life simulation indie game for PC and Mac. Build your dream house, create some characters and manage their lives the way you want inside their homes and all around an open world town!

Several articles have been written about it but this PCGamesN article does a pretty good job explaining some of the features the game is planning to have.

Paralives also has a website and Patreon for those interested.

While it's not The Sims and it's only going to be reaching early access in early 2025 I wanted to say I'm fine with people post about Paralives and other Sims adjacent stuff here. I like the idea of promoting smaller projects whether it's games, mods, or open source engine recreations.

To be clear though by life sim I mean general life simulations not job simulations like firefighter or trucker simulators. That's a bit too general and probably better suited for general gaming communities on Lemmy.

My only hope is that people realise these are often fan made creations with teams significantly smaller than EA's and that they set their expectations accordingly. They might need time to breath and develop.

This is still a really small Lemmy community but if you have any thoughts feel free to let me know in the comments.

This makes me think of all the multi-level houses I made in the Sims 3 with an elevator. The combination of a large family and themed floors frequently meant Sims passing out or being late for school/work because they were busy waiting for the elevator.

This was originally posted to Reddit on /r/TheSims by /u/AbsurdMultiverse. Old Reddit link that gets around Reddit's annoying VPN blocking here.

I saw a post on [email protected] with the video Death of a Game: The Sims Online by nerdSlayer Studios. It talks about how The Sims Online was received by fans and it's decline. Towards the end the video FreeSO is mentioned which is something I haven't thought about in years so I wanted to share it here.

FreeSO's GitHub page describes itself as the following:

A full reimplementation of The Sims Online, using Monogame. While FreeSO aims to be faithful to the original game, it includes many quality of life changes such as hardware rendering, custom dynamic lighting, hi-res output and >2 floor houses. If you simply wish to play, you can install FreeSO and the original TSO files using our installer on http://freeso.org, and it will connect to our official servers.

FreeSO currently depends on the original game files (objects, avatars, ui) to function, which are available for download from EA servers. FreeSO is simply a game engine, and does not contain any copyrighted material in and of itself.

It's a neat project I would recommend checking out. It can feel like a massive grind compared to The Sims though.

The Sims Online is also the basis for Project Dollhouse, FreeSims and Simitone. Three open source engine recreation projects.

All projects haven't had new releases in over three years as far as I am aware. I believe Simitone is the most stable of the three.

The Disaster Of The Sims 4 by Izzzyzzz talks about Project Olympus and how the Sims 4 was originally planned to be a multiplayer experience. I wanted to include this for those that want to go down the Sims online rabbit hole.

I think there are mutliplayer mods out there for The Sims 4 but I haven't tried them out myself.