Freezing (with no end)

[pallyndrome]

Does anyone (besides me) play regularly with story progression (and aging) off?

I ask because I think it is causing a problem with my game - see my technical help topic for more details: http://www.carls-sims-3-guide.com/forum/index.php/topic,9405.0.html

So, anyone?

[Saltypaws]

Have you tried turning story progression and aging back on, just to see if that is the culprit?   Didn't you say it was just this one game file?   That is really strange.   

[pallyndrome]

I'll try that if I can, but the game might freeze too quickly for me to get into options. I'll let you know how it goes...

[pallyndrome]

Ok, so I did manage to turn story progression and aging back on, but then it still froze. So maybe it's not story progression. I don't know what it could be though - maybe one of my cds is corrupt? This did seem to happen around the time I got pets. But I really have no idea. I'm waiting for an email from an 'expert' from EA.

[Saltypaws]

Good luck and let us know.

[jeanamariex3]

I too, prefer aging and story progression off, especially since they mess up, when I play with multiple households. I'm not totally into families or generational games, so it makes more sense to turn those two things off.

[angelcat621]

I too, prefer aging and story progression off, especially since they mess up, when I play with multiple households. I'm not totally into families or generational games, so it makes more sense to turn those two things off.

Same here. I prefer to play with characters I have created, from the non-Sims stories that I write. In my Sims games, I'm compulsive about every little detail.

[jeanamariex3]

Story Progression is also glitched, and takes up a lot of resources, so you're better leaving it off, and letting the characters age with your control. Then you don't have to worry about the town being overpopulated, or people aging/dying out of your control.

[Salome Toums]

I play with story progression off constantly.  It's the first thing I do when I start a new game.  I had an instance where my game just froze.  All the ambient sounds were going, night and day passed, but absolutely nothing would happen.  I ended up going into that specific file folder and going to a previous save before the glitch, as there will be stories with multiple saves as backups, but they only go so far back (if I remember correctly).  I had a ton of CC, I was on Vista at the time, and my computer was total crap.  I just attributed all my problems to that.  Within a couple months, I just deleted everything sims off my computer and started fresh.  That problem never happened again, but I had downloaded an auto-save mod when I reinstalled, as a precautionary measure. 

[pallyndrome]

Thank you for answering everyone! Judging by your replies, I would guess that story progression being off is not causing my problems after all. However, Salome's problem sounds similar. But I deleted sims totally and started afresh too, but the problem came back . I'm starting to think it might be something wrong with my pets cd since the problems started a little way into that pack. I'm still waiting for EA to get back to me (I feeling quite impatient).

[Salome Toums]

I discovered something well worth noting, don't quite know how common knowledge it is, but I have a total of four Sims 3 disks, everything else is digital.  However, when I did a complete fresh install of the game on a brand new computer, Origin had every single one of my purchases in my library, including those packs on disk and obtained through Amazon.  If you think your physical Pets disk is the problem, check your Origin library, see if you can't download it from Origin itself.

[pallyndrome]

Thanks for that Salome, I'll look into that if I have to replace the discs. But I just finished a few hours playing a fresh game to see if it would freeze in roughly the same amount of time that my other game froze in. I played with story progression on like normal (my other game had story progression off). Almost 8 sim days in and no freezing (my other game froze after around 5 days. I'm quite depressed by this because it suggests that there it something wrong with my other (original) game itself, and the only thing I can think of that being is having story progression off .

[pallyndrome]

It froze! I'm so happy! I know that sounds wierd, but let me explain. I was playing a perfectly ordinary game with story progression on, and in a town with only that household being played. So since it froze, the problem is not because of the way I played - it freezes whether I played with story progression on or off, or with a big neighbourhood or not. I'm so glad it's not the way I play.

EDIT: also I changed the title of this thread since we're not really discussion story progression anymore.

[Salome Toums]

For lack of better verbage, that just sounds goofy.  Because if you completely deleted the household totally and started fresh (I'm assuming you deleted it and recreated it in CAS), then the household itself wouldn't be glitched.  I was wondering if you just deleted the household out of that first neighborhood and moved it from the sim bin into another neighborhood, and if maybe the sim bin was glitching it.

Looking at the household, is there anything that might've sneaked into your sim, like a weird pattern on the clothes, or a skintone, or even a clothing item that you didn't realize was downloaded?

[pallyndrome]

I did try moving the household into a new neighbourhood, but it didn't help. Then I completely deleted it, un/reinstalled, and recreated it in CAS (or used sims that came with the neighbourhoods), and it didn't help. I also just played a totally normal game (with Pauline and Hank Wan) and that froze also. So I can only conclude that there is something wrong with my game in general. I don't think it could be something like a pattern or clothing - I use only what I've downloaded from the sims 3 store, or the swap shop here.

I hope EA gets back to me soon - I'm dieing to play sims.