Author Topic: World Adventures Weirdness (Read 3795 times)

Pam · « **on:** November 19, 2009, 06:15:46 AM »

I've been playing the new World Adventures most of the day. I've completed a few adventures and made lots of new discoveries for plants, fish, recipes, etc. There's also some just weird things in the game now that weren't there before. Metro has already mentioned the very short shelf life for leftovers in the refrigerator. This is more than just weird... it's plain WRONG!! I used to be able to keep leftovers for several days with the most expensive refrigerator, but now I'm lucky if they last 24 Sim hours. Please EA!! Please put back the leftover times!

Another thing... my garden plants no longer need water. There's no option to water even a seed that's just been planted. I have 2 automatic sprinklers that come on every morning and several others that haven't been upgraded to automatic, so they never come on. Those plants are just fine without the sprinklers being on. Weird.

And just now, I kept hearing the sound of a toddler laughing. I checked the only toddler in my house and she was fast asleep. I followed the sound and found a toddler in the house next door. I could see into the windows a little and there she was just sitting in the empty floor laughing. I've never had such thin walls in the game like that. So, now I'm wondering if I'm going to hear the adult conversations, too. I don't like it much.

I'm enjoying WA a lot and the improvements are fantastic! But what's up with the changes in things that were working great? If it's not broke, don't fix it!

Metropolis Man · « **Reply #1 on:** November 19, 2009, 07:15:24 AM »

Quote from: Pam on November 19, 2009, 06:15:46 AM

I'm enjoying WA a lot and the improvements are fantastic! But what's up with the changes in things that were working great? If it's not broke, don't fix it!

Amen to that, sister. I think I jumped the gun on the new photography challenge and may end up scrapping it because in my opinion you cannot make money at all with photography. Like I told you in the challenge thread I'm going to stick with my tester character another full day. But, if my mood bar doesn't go up by tonight, then I think ES really needs to overhaul that skill to make it viable and fun. I'm not asking for photography to be as lucrative as painting, writing, and guitar playing. But, if my guy only has 750 Simoleans for 3 weeks work something is clearly wrong.

HelenP · « **Reply #2 on:** November 19, 2009, 08:56:48 AM »

I've noticed the leftovers thing with the latest patch on the vanilla game so presumably the sprinklers have been changed too. Quite annoying really, it means there is no point in keeping food in the fridge at all if your sims have the 'Hardly Hungry' reward and presumably no point in buying sprinklers which means one less thing for Handy sims to upgrade and/or repair which could make the Max Skills challenge harder

Metropolis Man · « **Reply #3 on:** November 19, 2009, 09:42:57 AM »

My photography dislikes may just be my personal pet peeves. But, the whole food spoiling in nanoseconds thing — that to me is a game breaker. I mean it's truly awful. And it makes no sense because every feature they've added with this monster patch has been one of time saving — like the auto fertilizing thing. If you're feeding an enormous family of 8, then yes, you should be expected to have to cook once or twice a day because of all of the plates everyone is grabbing. But, for a single Sim who only grabs breakfast and dinner? Are you kidding me?

RCHaynes · « **Reply #4 on:** November 19, 2009, 10:46:36 AM »

Quote

But what's up with the changes in things that were working great? If it's not broke, don't fix it!

Unfortunately, this is the state of 21st century software development, living down to the theory that there's never time to do it right, but there's time to do it over. I work for a very large company that spends literally hundreds of millions on software development in-house every year. And most of it is crap.
There is no longer pride in creating a program that runs well, does as it is supposed to and doesn't introduce problems in features that previously worked flawlessly (or nearly so). People become developers because there's big $$$ kaching involved, not because they love computers or programming. And gods help you if you infer that their creation is less than prefection codified, for they will react as though you wish to burn their first-born in effigy.
In general, software development teams are missing a crucial portion: Quality Assurance Engineers (and not just because I need work

). One who writes a program to do X, Y and Z will not have, usually, the midset that says what if W²? Why are teams missing this crucial element? Becasue some suit in accounting can't see a fiscal need. Software companies, and games are NOT the worst offenders, have come to see it as their commercially given right to rake in mad cash for shoddy worksmanship and work on fixing it later.
I'd happily accept 1/2 as much 1/2 as often in terms of releases and expansions and such if it meant that what I get is solid software.
/rant off, steps off soapboax

Pam · « **Reply #5 on:** November 19, 2009, 07:41:06 PM »

Quote from: Metropolis Man on November 19, 2009, 09:42:57 AM

If you're feeding an enormous family of 8, then yes, you should be expected to have to cook once or twice a day because of all of the plates everyone is grabbing. But, for a single Sim who only grabs breakfast and dinner? Are you kidding me?

Leftovers are even more important because it's a large family. Not everyone eats at the same time and it's madness trying to keep 8 Sims fed. Even if I had them all on the same eating schedule, it gets crazy when 8 of them try to grab a plate and find a place to sit. Leftovers are a lifesaver for the large family.

I found another oddity, too. Before when the cook made the meal, she wouldn't eat any of it unless she was very hungry. She could cook it for everyone else, then go do something else. Now she eats a plate every time she prepares a meal. I had my cooking Sim at the park grilling several meals to get a wish of cooking 3 meals perfectly and she tried to eat a plate from each of them! Even if I stopped her, she would go right back to it if I didn't give her another task to keep her busy. I really don't like this. She gets the stuffed moodlet and might put on weight. Maybe it's not that big a deal and I'm overreacting, but it's annoying and it's new with the patches and expansion pack.

PJSim · « **Reply #6 on:** November 19, 2009, 11:50:10 PM »

Well, I assume the fridge is broken and it will get fixed. Fixing the save error was just a larger priority.

Quote from: Pam on November 19, 2009, 07:41:06 PM

Now she eats a plate every time she prepares a meal.

My Sims are not doing that. They do like they always do, they won't eat unless they have the hungry moodlet.

Quote from: Pam on November 19, 2009, 06:15:46 AM

Another thing... my garden plants no longer need water. There's no option to water even a seed that's just been planted. I have 2 automatic sprinklers that come on every morning and several others that haven't been upgraded to automatic, so they never come on. Those plants are just fine without the sprinklers being on.

In my game the plants no longer need water right after being planted but they do every day after that. I'm actually liking this, you no longer have to turn on the sprinklers while planting.

Something else I've noticed: I have a sim using the telescope a lot and he seems to see more meteors than usual. Could just be a fluke but I'm happy about this. I like meteors.

On the very first day he found one worth more than 3.500 simoleons.

I installed WA yesterday (the 19th). I uninstalled the base game and did a clean install of everything. I also updated the game whenever it wanted to so I have the latest patches.
Until I see otherwise I really believe problems will get fixed soonish. In the past I never got the EP's right away and I never had any problems then.

Carl · « **Reply #7 on:** November 20, 2009, 01:38:51 AM »

Several problems...

I have trouble with the User Interface, in that hovering over anything and expecting a tooltip about it, be it a Sim's name, or even the name and description of a wish I'd promise seems to be there for a millisecond then disappear. I have to struggle with the game paused to get the tooltip to come.

When looking at tombs by going down a level so I can resume my progress I've gone for a couple really wild camera rides. For no explainable reason my camera flew from within the tomb to the base camp, even though my Sim was en route and nowhere near the camp.

I'm annoyed that Martial Arts skill journal lists what you need to do to complete the challenges, but doesn't describe what the challenges do for the Sim once they're done. Is this a problem with all the skills?

Also a puddle has appeared several times on the ground, as though a Sim has wet himself -- even mine, who has steel bladder and doesn't wet anywhere at all, ever.

Glad they fixed the issue with saving but looking forward to the next set of fixes. I'm sure they're working on them.

HelenP · « **Reply #8 on:** November 20, 2009, 05:36:39 AM »

To add to the weirdness, although I've got vanilla sims patched up to 1.7, is that my businesses are no longer paying out.

Monday at 11am they said "No money available, come back after 9am Monday" but I hadn't collected any money that week!

Just as I was getting somewhere with the Trump Challenge as well

. Have emailed EA, hope they fix it soon.

Oops put this in the wrong topic, v. sorry. I don't know how to move it to the help section though.

Carl · « **Reply #9 on:** November 20, 2009, 06:05:21 AM »

Quote from: HelenP on November 20, 2009, 05:36:39 AM

To add to the weirdness, although I've got vanilla sims patched up to 1.7, is that my businesses are no longer paying out.

Monday at 11am they said "No money available, come back after 9am Monday" but I hadn't collected any money that week!

Just as I was getting somewhere with the Trump Challenge as well . Have emailed EA, hope they fix it soon.

Oops put this in the wrong topic, v. sorry. I don't know how to move it to the help section though.

It's ok, most of this is some sort of complaining about the patch that came with WA, and we likely just haven't noticed how it affects the regular gameplay. It seems like with every patch comes bugs, and eventually we'll iron out 95% with a lurking 5% to annoy us for the rest of our Sim careers. Here's hoping they address all our concerns.

Metropolis Man · « **Reply #10 on:** November 20, 2009, 07:19:39 AM »

Quote from: Carl on November 20, 2009, 01:38:51 AM

I'm annoyed that Martial Arts skill journal lists what you need to do to complete the challenges, but doesn't describe what the challenges do for the Sim once they're done. Is this a problem with all the skills?

Ah, thanks for adding another black mark to my growing list of photography dislikes. Yep. Same thing.

Quote from: Neo-Nightmare on November 20, 2009, 07:55:18 AM

I don't know if its, the game or the new patches but now The beautiful vista lots are fixed. I no longer lose the moodlet if I move a house on those certain lots. XD

Yeah, that was one of the million things in the patch notes that got fixed.

EDIT: Carl/Pam — You both probably figured out that getting me to do the photography walkthrough may entail an act of God at this point. Carl, you mentioned above the skill journal of Martial Arts being too sparse. Nectar making is a different story. That seems like a good skill and maybe even profitable too. I've got 2 sick kids at home at the moment so they obviously take priority over anything, but in my spare time I plan on creating Ernest and Julio Gallo today and keeping some notes for a future Nectar-making walkthrough if you guys are okay with that.

Neo-Nightmare · « **Reply #11 on:** November 20, 2009, 07:55:18 AM »

I don't know if it's the game or the new patches, but now the beautiful vista lots are fixed. I no longer lose the moodlet if I move a house on those certain lots. XD

PJSim · « **Reply #12 on:** November 20, 2009, 09:27:33 AM »

I noticed this mentioned in the list of changes but haven't checked it out myself yet.

Yay!

igzigpuff · « **Reply #13 on:** November 20, 2009, 03:46:17 PM »

In regards to food spoiling in the fridge, read a thread over on the EA forum that they replaced the fridge with a new one and the food didn't spoil so quickly anymore. That fix worked for some and not others, another fix mentioned he moved his family to another lot and that fixed the spoiling food. I wonder if you are having trouble with objects not working in existing games, that maybe replacing the items not functioning properly with new ones might fix the trouble for example sprinklers, plants, etc.., just a thought.

PJSim · « **Reply #14 on:** November 21, 2009, 04:09:11 PM »

I tried buying a new fridge, that seems to work. Thanks igzig!

It's weird because it's a new family I made after installing WA. They moved into a house with a fridge so I guess that makes it "old".

Pam · « **Reply #15 on:** November 21, 2009, 08:32:53 PM »

I've replaced the refrigerator several times. I think maybe the most recent one might be working better, but don't know for sure yet. I also read in the Prima Guide that you can store leftovers of Great and Excellent meals to be eaten later. So, now I'm wondering if it's only high quality meals that will stay in the refrigerator. It might be something they changed with the new updates and World Adventures release that lower quality meals spoil faster. I'll do some testing and see if I can find anything concrete.

Metropolis Man · « **Reply #16 on:** November 21, 2009, 08:46:29 PM »

My nectar-making Gallo brothers that sort of got aborted today did buy the best fridge. And I remember some Goopy Carbonara lasting for quite a few days, so I don't know what was the problem before. I did notice the spoiling problem when I was testing out the photography skill. That character was making a lot of sushi and throwing the leftovers in the fridge. One thing I wondered was — maybe not using the stove really cranks up the problem? But, to test that out today I had one of the Gallo brothers make some Autumn Salad and it still lasted a few days in the best fridge. So, I don't know if it's a fish thing, or if it's the fridge. I'm stumped.

bcollins87 · « **Reply #17 on:** November 23, 2009, 03:15:10 AM »

I found a new rock in WA called "Tiberium" which comes from another EA game serius "Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars." After a few days of it being in your inventory it will no longer be a rough rock but a cut gem that makes you sick -30 mood. It was originally worth $90 now after it has evolved into a big crystal it is worth $40,000. I've found 3 more lying around in Egypt all have evolved and their worth depends on their weight but lets just say I'm rich

Pam · « **Reply #18 on:** November 23, 2009, 04:01:39 AM »

I don't suppose you remember where in Egypt you found them?

bcollins87 · « **Reply #19 on:** November 23, 2009, 04:46:36 PM »

Okay, now that I remember, I found one in a neighbor's trash can in Sunset Valley at night (my Sim is Kleptomaniac). And the other 3, I bought in Egypt's marketplace one day. I try to buy as much stuff from the marketplace as possible because some of it is undervalued until you buy it and actually analyze it.

Pam · « **Reply #20 on:** November 23, 2009, 05:06:04 PM »

I found one in the wild somewhere between Ship's Oasis and the Great Sphinx. Then I bought three at the Relic Store before I left Egypt. It looks like an uncut gem, not like a piece of metal. On my monitor, it looked green like an Emerald. When I got back home, I put one on display and left the other three in my Sim's inventory. On the display stand, it looks less green and more turquoise. My Sim is at the point right now where's he's got the sickness, but the gem hasn't changed yet.

Very interesting find, bcollins! Thank you for sharing it with us! I'll be back with pictures and final details later.

Bogie74 · « **Reply #21 on:** November 23, 2009, 07:25:28 PM »

Well, I finally FINALLY got my WA today..so much for "rush shipping".. anyway. Saw there was a new game update, and stared at the screen and laughed... SERIOUSLY?? After all I have been through there is NO WAY I am DL it until I see some posts about nothing major happening.

Fridge thing still annoying me. I've just gotten to the point now where I open the fridge, find the bad food, and drag it into my sell window!! ROFL!

I have also experienced what Pam has, where I have my Sim make a meal, and unless she is SUPER hungry, she just sticks it in the fridge right after she cooks it!

Love the new clothes, moodlets, and LTR. I've been to France, and to Egypt.

First Impressions:

Did I miss the Eifle Tower because how can you have France without it?? Copywrite issue

I guess I kinda take this Vacation Spot to heart because my mother was born in France, and came to the US when she was 7.. I do love the new recipes, and the nector. Which leads me to my next thought.. did they decide to call it "nector" -vs- wine because of the age content thing? Architecture pretty true to form considering.

Egypt - kinda annoyed at how you can only ride your bike in certain areas, then you run everywhere else! Took FOREVER to complete the Tomb Tours mission. Completed that, and the first 3 legs of the plunder of egypt.
I also found that gem Tiberium, along the banks of the river, near Camp moon. Here is Lara, using the snake basket:

I should have given her the genuis trait, because the stupid idiot stuck her hand in when she first tried and got bit! DUHH!!

Pam · « **Reply #22 on:** November 23, 2009, 07:33:50 PM »

I read somewhere that the Eiffel Tower is visable as decoration only. We can't actually visit it. It's just part of the landscape.

Bogie74 · « **Reply #23 on:** November 23, 2009, 10:49:56 PM »

Thanks Pam!!

Must have missed it.

I also have the Tiberium in my inventory - it's been 3 days now, and she's now -25 mood, but gem has not changed..(moodlet for vacation has also disappeared) don't know if that matters or not, but Lara's keep carting around this radio to boost her mood LOL!

Incidentally, mine was valued at 104, though I read somewhere that the value is different for different Sims..

Pam · « **Reply #24 on:** November 23, 2009, 10:54:06 PM »

My Tiberium hasn't changed yet either. It's making the Sim sick, though. I also put one on a display stand and it shoots off green sparks randomly.

I'm having a problem with a Filthy Surroundings moodlet in the living/dining/kitchen area of my house. I have three neat Sims living there and they have all cleaned the whole house several times and have taken out the trash. I even hired a maid for a couple of days to see if that would get rid of it, but no luck. Every Sim in the house gets the moodlet while in those areas of the house, and it goes away for all of them when they go to a different area. I'm really baffled by this one.