Ghost Town

[pologolf]

My longest game - into its 44th week has gone all Alfred Hitchcock on me!

A list of things that are wrong with it that now make it unplayable.

- The pond just disappeared.
- My sims are all stuck in bed. They went to bed one night and are now standing in their beds or frozen into them.
- When I reset them, they disappeared or just floated.
- Two members had not been able to use their cell phones for quite a while. The action just cancelled.
- They could not go to the grocery store.

SO, I uninstalled the game and reinstalled it. They were still stuck - except for the one I managed to rescue.

One family member was able to be unstuck so I moved him to another house where he is doing OK except...

       The town of Sunset Valley is deserted!!

There is no one in the park, saved sim goes to the movies and exits alone. Any sims who are around are stuck in chairs or benches. When I reset them, they disappear. His grandfather can be seen around town.

Around town there are only former family members now stuck in bits of gym equipment and the like.

I called the maid, she seems to work. I have not seen the paper boy.

The rescued sim can call his grandfather and that's it.

When he goes back to the family home, even though they are all in there, no one answers the door.

So, I had to plant a few people around town via the sim bin just to give him others to socialise with.

Is this game salvagable?

Any and all help greatly appreciated. I think there just may be one or two glitches that need ironing out..........just one or two...

There was no problem until I installed Ambitions....hmmmm. I took the option of not installing the salon, fire station and the like.

Who or what massacred the residents of Sunset Valley and my longest game??

[Naga]

First of all, do you use mods, or have ever downloaded any custom content (official and/or unofficial)?

If you do, that is most likely the cause of it. Most mods change the core mechanics of the game, making it very risky. Custom content is anything you download; Both official and unofficial CC can be corrupted, but unofficial tends to have more corrupted stuff than official.

You may also try to load the automatic backup save from the game, to the last save you did prior to the most recent one (second-last save). If you saved while the game was buggy, it is most likely that this game you mentioned is lost.

Oh, and just to let you know that your "bugs" don't have anything to do with your game length. My first game was 163 weeks long (recently, I moved them to a fresh new SV) and the only problem I had ever gotten was that it took 15-17 minutes to load the game, and 8-10 to save.

[Pam]

I agree with everything Naga said.  Unless you can retrieve a backup save, your file is probably lost due to corruption. 

[pologolf]

Thank you both for your help.

The last few saves were all buggy so I'll have to kiss that game goodbye..

No, I don't use mods. Yes, I have downloaded official custom content. A couple of haircuts and a sofa, I think. Would that really be enough to destroy a game? If so, how do I remove them? I suppose I would have to remove the haircut from the saved sim first? Don't won't a haircut (and don't forget that sofa) wrecking the rest of my games.

[Naga]

Well the most common CC corrupter comes mostly from downloaded houses and lots, and it's a little hard to believe that it was the hair or sofa that bugged your game, but you can also try running the game without custom content, just for making sure. To do that, open the game launcher, click Installed Content, and check the box where it says "Run Without Custom Content". I recommend loading that save file of yours, and moving the household to another neighborhood, since that one is already dead anyway.

If that doesn't change a thing and your game is still bugged, you don't have to worry about the hairstyles or the sofa, because it's not their fault.

Have you tried starting a new game? Preferrably in another Sunset Valley first, to see if the town gets deserted again. If it doesn't, then the problem was your save file, and you can slingshot it all the way to grand canyon. If the town gets ghosty again, try another neighborhood.

If none of the above work for you, I believe we'll get in a more pc-technical talk, but to not get too complicated on it, I'll wait for your reply.

[pologolf]

I've started a new game and it's running very smoothly, thank you. There are actually sims there.....!

One more hypothetical, if I remove the custom content from the destroyed game and then remove the custom content could I save the game??

Look forward to your reply......

[Naga]

I don't think it was corrupted CC that ruined your other save file. Sometimes it's just a[nother] bug that EA missed or forgot to fix. I guess you can either go to your deserted neighborhood's file, save the household to the library, and put it in the working neighborhood, or just delete it.

[pologolf]

Thanks again.

Please notice "newbie" status here. I just discovered the sim bin...

How do I "save the family to the library" and when you say "put it in the working neighbourhood", do you mean the one which I have working, which is Sunset Valley again or do you mean another neighbourhood, like Twinbrook?

Is there any way to save the house? An architect friend of mine designed it and it took hours to build.

[Pam]

How do I "save the family to the library" and when you say "put it in the working neighbourhood", do you mean the one which I have working, which is Sunset Valley again or do you mean another neighbourhood, like Twinbrook?

Is there any way to save the house? An architect friend of mine designed it and it took hours to build.

You can save the family to the library by going into Edit Town from the Main Menu.  It will take you to a Map View of the town.  Click your household and you'll get options to save just the family or the family with the house.  Then when you start a new game in any other town, go back to Edit Town, find your family with the house, and place it somewhere in the fresh town.  Once you have them placed in a fresh town, you can play them again (probably) unless the household itself is corrupted.  The way to save just the house would be to follow all of these same steps, but then after you have placed them into a fresh town, click on the household and evict the family.  This will move them to the clipboard.  Then you can click on the empty house and save it to your library.  After doing this, the empty house should be available in any new game you start.

I also suggest that you look through our Technical Help board for some ways to clean up your game and remove corrupted files.  All of the most important topics will be stickied to the top of the board.

I hope this helps you out. 

[Naga]

when you say "put it in the working neighbourhood", do you mean the one which I have working, which is Sunset Valley again or do you mean another neighbourhood, like Twinbrook?

I meant putting the household+house (because you like the house) in the fresh-new Sunset Valley. You can take this as an opportunity to change neighborhoods too, if you want, so Twinbrook is also an option.

If the game goes back to giving problems, we'll know it's either the household or the house that is doing it, so you should also save the household without the house to the library. To get the house without the household, do as Pam said in the post above.

[pologolf]

Thank you both Pam and Naga.

I managed to save it in some form. Moved the house and family and one kept on disappearing into furniture so I moved the others out. He's still stuck in the bed, a custom one from EA, which seemed to be causing the problems?

Raided the house for everything (minus one Kelvin fridge, life fruit, deathfish, death flowers) and then moved the survivors to a new place and it's running great. Will see later if I can fish in their pond and harvest on that lot. WIll also see if I can save the house from a previously saved game.

Was quite fun to see Chris Steel give a charming introduction to Chris Steel. They get along well

So, I have my family tree and most of my family. Thanks again for your help. I'll follow Pam's advice and look for ways to clean up my games. I've lost about 8 due to, "Cannot load this save game. It may have been saved with expansion pack data that is no longer present on this system"

Say, what???

[Naga]

Not sure, but I think that you get that message for either Corrupted CC or cleaning your caches and stuff in a wrong way.