Secret Society Anomaly

Greg · 08-08-2007, 11:23 PM

The strangest thing has happened to the Secret Society at least in my Meat Market neighborhood.

I was shooting scenes for a story at the frat, so I had an adult sim (Melinda) there as an active, selectable sim. To my shock and surprise, she got abducted by the SS! As soon as she got there and they gave her some SS duds, I had her call the limo to go home. When the game reloaded, she was back at her home at The Wreck instead at the frat.

That was amusing enough, but it wasn't the end of it. Now, every time someone gets kidnapped by the SS, the lot loads in Build Mode. It's like what you get when you enter an unoccupied lot to build.

I can exit back to the college neighborhood and then go back to the lot where the kidnapping took place, but so far I haven't found a way for an active sim to be a the SS headquarters.

I also haven't tried playing in a different neighborhood to find out if this is a global problem or unique to the Meat Market neighborhoods.

shorty943 · 08-08-2007, 11:57 PM

Um, did this start happening, after a recent "stuffup" pack installation or some such?

Miros1 · 08-09-2007, 01:43 AM

Weird. I'll have to figure out which Sims are in the secret society so my Sims can suck up to them and get abducted. I just installed Celebration Stuff over top of Pets and Seasons...

shorty943 · 08-09-2007, 02:35 AM

Yeah, if I have a secret society in my game, they keep themselves pretty quiet.
Hmm, damned what'samafaces.

Mind you, university only sits in my game for continuity.
Uni students did not impress me much when I went to Uni, the game has not changed that much.

I do find a sort of joy, in having young Paris Hilton, living as trailer trash, and washing dishes in a greasy spoon for a living.
Surely that can't be all bad.

Greg · 08-09-2007, 07:51 AM

If anything influenced the odd abduction of an adult by the SS, it was the installation of the Inteenimator and maybe the Inteen adults-on-campus flavor pack.

I had to visit two other neighborhoods before I could get a student abducted, but I finally succeeded. The SS headquarters at Boveena College works normally, so I suspect the problem exists only at Tenderloin College, the institute of lower learning near the Meat Market.

I could do a lot more experiments but it's not enough of a nuisance for me to worry about much. The SS at Tenderloin College just isn't an important part of my game play, though I do like to play with those lots on other campuses.

FWIW, I have all the expansion packs through Open For Business and stuff packs up through Happily Holiday Stuff. I use the Glamour Life Stuff disk to start my game.

I have not installed Pets, Seasons, or anything else released since then.

shorty943 · 08-09-2007, 08:49 AM

Okay, that was when the game was still reasonably stable.

So whaT IS IN THAT ss LOT THAT IS NOT IN THE OTHERS?

EEK. Stupid caps lock key, too close to the "A" key, and my left pinky.

I repeat, legibly this time.

What is it that may be in that SS lot, that is not in any other?

Greg · 08-09-2007, 10:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shorty943

What is it that may be in that SS lot, that is not in any other?

That is the $64,000 question. Something is triggering the game to load that lot in Build Mode, and whatever it is, I think it happened when Melinda got kidnapped by the SS. Two possibilities come to mind:

The lot got flagged as the wrong kind of lot.
Something is preventing the kidnapped sim or the limousine from arriving, so that the game doesn't realize there is a playable sim present.

Option 1: Wrong type of lot

When Melinda left, the game reloaded the main neighborhood, not the university. It could be that in the process of moving from lot to another, the game sets a flag about the SS lot as it reloads a university lot.

Option 2: Blocked entry portal

Melinda did successfully leave, but again, maybe the fact that the game reloaded the main neighborhood instead of the university prevented it from removing the old limo, and that limo is blocking the parking spot.

If this were a regular lot, I could try moving a sim in, since moved-in sims do not have to arrive in a vehicle. Unfortunately, it's a hidden lot so that won't work.

I thought of a possible solution: Hunt down that lot in SimPE and delete it. This should cause the game to generate an error message and allow me to install a new SS lot.

shorty943 · 08-10-2007, 03:34 AM

From Greg.

"Option 2: Blocked entry portal

Melinda did successfully leave, but again, maybe the fact that the game reloaded the main neighborhood instead of the university prevented it from removing the old limo, and that limo is blocking the parking spot.

If this were a regular lot, I could try moving a sim in, since moved-in sims do not have to arrive in a vehicle. Unfortunately, it's a hidden lot so that won't work."

Exactly what I was thinking. SS lots vanish on placement. Sort off.

I had a similar problem a long time ago with a career hack. It really screwed with the internal transport system. Buses, Helicopters, beat up smogo's, all trying to get into the pick up slot at the same time.
I also recall a community lot that had a private vehicle parked out front and became recalcitrant, because I had a teenager borrow a car for a shopping trip. Stupid teenager then took taxi home. That left a car in limbo, an owner out a car and a community lot that wouldn't let people drop off.

I just hacked away at the downloads folder and deleted the problems.

If SimPE can't help, there is always the good old delete command.

Miros1 · 08-10-2007, 04:10 AM

Your post reminded me of a known OFB bug... The owner of a community lot could get their car "stuck" on the lot and result in all sorts of mayhem.

I used to have the "build mode" problem when I'd tacnuke (deleteallchars) neighborhoods with owned lots. If a Sim tried to go to J'Adore Bakery (for example) on a date, you'd see them standing on the corner, but you'd be in Build Mode.

When you find the secret society lot, open it up in SimPE and see if it's owned by MysterySim. If so, set it to none. You could also check the Characters folder for new Sims by sorting by name.

Greg · 08-10-2007, 02:58 PM

Aha! It worked! I simply removed the lot from my neighborhood N018 lot directory. Then I went looking for a likely victim. I had Jane Stacks (from the Bright household) go down to the library and used Insim to cheat like crazy so that she became best friends with every member of the SS who wandered in.
FWIW, it was lot 041 in my neighborhood N018. I found it by looking at the images of lots in SimPE.

Jane Stacks got kidnapped by the Secret Society.

Exactly as I anticipated, just after 11:00 PM that night the cop came and kidnapped her, but when the game tried to load the SS headquarters lot, I got an error message.

Instead of trying to load the SS lot, the game gave me this error message.

The game took me back to the Bright household and Jane got out of the limo. So far, so good. Then I went to the neighborhood screen for Tenderloin College.

The SS lots showed up in my lot catalog.

I placed the lot and, as expected, it immediately disappeared. So, back to the Bright household. I went through a lot of trouble to get Martin acquainted with SS members. He even found his one true love while he was at the library, an SS member named Veronica Cormier.

Martin Ruben met his One True Love at the library.
Did you know that Martin is frat boy Joshua Ruben's brother?

They even managed to have a dream date at the library while Martin was befriending more SS members.

It was a dream date for Martin and Veronica.

I expected that the next night, Martin would get hauled off to SS HQ and forced into the induction ceremoney, but nooo...

Allegra got kidnapped instead.
She's had a makeover but that's her!

Although the game did not feel obligated to do what I expected, it turned out to be a successful test.

Allegra was inducted into the SS.
Much to her dismay.

Allegra even got to meet Martin's flame at the SS HQ.

Allegra met Veronica at the SS headquarters.
Allegra has always been rather shy.

Overall, this is a happy thing. I had made some modifications to SS HQ in that neighborhood, but it wasn't a big loss to have to install a new version of the same lot. I can always tune it up again if spirit moves me.

Epilog

The next day, Veronica moved in with Martin and they got married. They are now living together in the same house on campus with Jane and Alegra.

Martin Ruben and Veronica Cormier got married the next day.

That very night, the SS showed up for Martin, too. Now the four of them can all go merrily goose-stepping around campus togther and do whatever else it is that SS members do.

The lesson learned from all this: If you have the Inteen adults-on-campus flavor pack installed, don't have a visiting adult selectable on a University lot at 11:00 PM, unless that adult is already a member of the SS.

Miros1 · 08-10-2007, 07:17 PM

Jane should be able to call for the Limo too...

Greg · 08-10-2007, 07:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Miros1

Jane should be able to call for the Limo too...

Haven't tested that part yet.

shorty943 · 08-12-2007, 04:22 AM

Did you take note of the lot name, flag it bad and place it in a new folder for SimPE investigations?
I made that mistake quite a while back. Dud lot (for my game at least), deleted it, then bloody well installed the very same lot again by mistake, and gave myself the very same headache all over again.

Note to self, make notes to self. Stupid.

Greg · 08-12-2007, 04:24 AM

I have now!

shorty943 · 08-12-2007, 04:34 AM

Ah, we live and learn.

Miros1 · 08-12-2007, 09:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shorty943

Did you take note of the lot name, flag it bad and place it in a new folder for SimPE investigations?
I made that mistake quite a while back. Dud lot (for my game at least), deleted it, then bloody well installed the very same lot again by mistake, and gave myself the very same headache all over again.

Note to self, make notes to self. Stupid.

Yep! I've done that, semi-on-purpose.

After updating my video card drivers, everything seemed happy. Then I tried to open one of my family frats (all playable members are members of my legacy family or their significant others). 2 seconds and Boom! Had to evict them and move them in somewhere else. Played a little, decided that house was just too small. Evicted and moved them into a freshly installed copy of their original house. 2 seconds and Boom! For their trouble, I cheated them some money and moved them into one of the really big Maxis houses. I don't usually use money cheats, but they'd lost a huge amount with 3 evictions that weren't their fault.

I'm annoyed that lot doesn't work anymore, at least not as a frat!

shorty943 · 08-12-2007, 10:39 AM

I never have played the game to that depth. It is probably a lot to do with the very America centric suburban way of the games structure. Especially the University side of the game.
Sadly, the only knowledge most of the rest of the world has of American society and thinking, is entirely from Hollyweird.
And they can never get it right because of their need to melo-dramatacize every damn silly little thing out of all true proportion.

Then of course, add every hack ever written, just to see what it does. The whole shebang is then crammed into the one merged "hood". From there it goes like
Oh, come on, just one more hack, you can,,,,oops.

Well, I do have an excuse to have a shot at getting greybeards runaway teenage girlfriend through college.
At least I figure that was what she was. Cute little blonde teenager, just walked into his house, sat down and did her homework, then cooked his dinner, and just wouldn't leave. I ended up packing her off to college, to get time, to work on the old fellows gardening badges. Now he mopes around all day thinking about her.

Greg · 08-12-2007, 09:19 PM

Hmm... if greybeard sends her off to college, maybe he should consider moving with her.

Now I'm tempted to duplicate that scenario in my game!

shorty943 · 08-13-2007, 12:03 AM

She is a "townie", but my Winslows machine is currently non-functional. Purposely.
So at the moment I can't even drag her name out of the ether.

More system\network re-organising. Add another machine for Winslows only, get my big Iron running as a dedicated server under Linux with VMachines, no more dual booting.

Then rebuild my game. That is all MS is to me, a games system. For real computing I use Linux, strictly. Even "on" the laptop I am writing this post on, is setup as a server. EEK, brain fade here. Senseless grammar highlighted.
And why would someone set up a laptop as a server?
The very same reason Sir Edmund Hillary climbed Mount Everest. To see if I could.

Works beautifully actually. I do like a real computer operating system.

Miros1 · 08-13-2007, 12:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greg

Hmm... if greybeard sends her off to college, maybe he should consider moving with her.

Now I'm tempted to duplicate that scenario in my game!

You kind of did. Remember your Sim, Charlie, taking up with a teenage checkout girl because she was the only female he could find?

08-08-2007, 11:23 PM	#1
Greg Da Guy Wut Owns Dis Joint Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Texas Posts: 3,566	Secret Society Anomaly The strangest thing has happened to the Secret Society at least in my Meat Market neighborhood. I was shooting scenes for a story at the frat, so I had an adult sim (Melinda) there as an active, selectable sim. To my shock and surprise, she got abducted by the SS! As soon as she got there and they gave her some SS duds, I had her call the limo to go home. When the game reloaded, she was back at her home at The Wreck instead at the frat. That was amusing enough, but it wasn't the end of it. Now, every time someone gets kidnapped by the SS, the lot loads in Build Mode. It's like what you get when you enter an unoccupied lot to build. I can exit back to the college neighborhood and then go back to the lot where the kidnapping took place, but so far I haven't found a way for an active sim to be a the SS headquarters. I also haven't tried playing in a different neighborhood to find out if this is a global problem or unique to the Meat Market neighborhoods. __________________ Who are all these people and what do they know?

08-09-2007, 07:51 AM	#5
Greg Da Guy Wut Owns Dis Joint Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Texas Posts: 3,566	If anything influenced the odd abduction of an adult by the SS, it was the installation of the Inteenimator and maybe the Inteen adults-on-campus flavor pack. I had to visit two other neighborhoods before I could get a student abducted, but I finally succeeded. The SS headquarters at Boveena College works normally, so I suspect the problem exists only at Tenderloin College, the institute of lower learning near the Meat Market. I could do a lot more experiments but it's not enough of a nuisance for me to worry about much. The SS at Tenderloin College just isn't an important part of my game play, though I do like to play with those lots on other campuses. FWIW, I have all the expansion packs through Open For Business and stuff packs up through Happily Holiday Stuff. I use the Glamour Life Stuff disk to start my game. I have not installed Pets, Seasons, or anything else released since then. __________________ Who are all these people and what do they know?

08-10-2007, 02:58 PM	#10
Greg Da Guy Wut Owns Dis Joint Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Texas Posts: 3,566	Aha! It worked! I simply removed the lot from my neighborhood N018 lot directory. Then I went looking for a likely victim. I had Jane Stacks (from the Bright household) go down to the library and used Insim to cheat like crazy so that she became best friends with every member of the SS who wandered in. FWIW, it was lot 041 in my neighborhood N018. I found it by looking at the images of lots in SimPE. Jane Stacks got kidnapped by the Secret Society. Exactly as I anticipated, just after 11:00 PM that night the cop came and kidnapped her, but when the game tried to load the SS headquarters lot, I got an error message. Instead of trying to load the SS lot, the game gave me this error message. The game took me back to the Bright household and Jane got out of the limo. So far, so good. Then I went to the neighborhood screen for Tenderloin College. The SS lots showed up in my lot catalog. I placed the lot and, as expected, it immediately disappeared. So, back to the Bright household. I went through a lot of trouble to get Martin acquainted with SS members. He even found his one true love while he was at the library, an SS member named Veronica Cormier. Martin Ruben met his One True Love at the library. Did you know that Martin is frat boy Joshua Ruben's brother? They even managed to have a dream date at the library while Martin was befriending more SS members. It was a dream date for Martin and Veronica. I expected that the next night, Martin would get hauled off to SS HQ and forced into the induction ceremoney, but nooo... Allegra got kidnapped instead. She's had a makeover but that's her! Although the game did not feel obligated to do what I expected, it turned out to be a successful test. Allegra was inducted into the SS. Much to her dismay. Allegra even got to meet Martin's flame at the SS HQ. Allegra met Veronica at the SS headquarters. Allegra has always been rather shy. Overall, this is a happy thing. I had made some modifications to SS HQ in that neighborhood, but it wasn't a big loss to have to install a new version of the same lot. I can always tune it up again if spirit moves me. Epilog The next day, Veronica moved in with Martin and they got married. They are now living together in the same house on campus with Jane and Alegra. Martin Ruben and Veronica Cormier got married the next day. That very night, the SS showed up for Martin, too. Now the four of them can all go merrily goose-stepping around campus togther and do whatever else it is that SS members do. The lesson learned from all this: If you have the Inteen adults-on-campus flavor pack installed, don't have a visiting adult selectable on a University lot at 11:00 PM, unless that adult is already a member of the SS. __________________ Who are all these people and what do they know?

08-12-2007, 04:24 AM	#14
Greg Da Guy Wut Owns Dis Joint Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Texas Posts: 3,566	I have now! __________________ Who are all these people and what do they know?

08-12-2007, 10:39 AM	#17
shorty943 Banned Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 805	I never have played the game to that depth. It is probably a lot to do with the very America centric suburban way of the games structure. Especially the University side of the game. Sadly, the only knowledge most of the rest of the world has of American society and thinking, is entirely from Hollyweird. And they can never get it right because of their need to melo-dramatacize every damn silly little thing out of all true proportion. Then of course, add every hack ever written, just to see what it does. The whole shebang is then crammed into the one merged "hood". From there it goes like Oh, come on, just one more hack, you can,,,,oops. Well, I do have an excuse to have a shot at getting greybeards runaway teenage girlfriend through college. At least I figure that was what she was. Cute little blonde teenager, just walked into his house, sat down and did her homework, then cooked his dinner, and just wouldn't leave. I ended up packing her off to college, to get time, to work on the old fellows gardening badges. Now he mopes around all day thinking about her. Last edited by shorty943 : 08-12-2007 at 10:47 AM.

08-08-2007, 11:57 PM	#2
shorty943 Banned Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 805	Um, did this start happening, after a recent "stuffup" pack installation or some such?

08-09-2007, 01:43 AM	#3
Miros1 Goddess for Life Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: NY State Posts: 3,303	Weird. I'll have to figure out which Sims are in the secret society so my Sims can suck up to them and get abducted. I just installed Celebration Stuff over top of Pets and Seasons...

08-09-2007, 02:35 AM	#4
shorty943 Banned Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 805	Yeah, if I have a secret society in my game, they keep themselves pretty quiet. Hmm, damned what'samafaces. Mind you, university only sits in my game for continuity. Uni students did not impress me much when I went to Uni, the game has not changed that much. I do find a sort of joy, in having young Paris Hilton, living as trailer trash, and washing dishes in a greasy spoon for a living. Surely that can't be all bad.

08-09-2007, 08:49 AM	#6
shorty943 Banned Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 805	Okay, that was when the game was still reasonably stable. So whaT IS IN THAT ss LOT THAT IS NOT IN THE OTHERS? EEK. Stupid caps lock key, too close to the "A" key, and my left pinky. I repeat, legibly this time. What is it that may be in that SS lot, that is not in any other?

08-10-2007, 03:34 AM	#8
shorty943 Banned Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 805	From Greg. "Option 2: Blocked entry portal Melinda did successfully leave, but again, maybe the fact that the game reloaded the main neighborhood instead of the university prevented it from removing the old limo, and that limo is blocking the parking spot. If this were a regular lot, I could try moving a sim in, since moved-in sims do not have to arrive in a vehicle. *Unfortunately, it's a hidden lot so that won't work*." Exactly what I was thinking. SS lots vanish on placement. Sort off. I had a similar problem a long time ago with a career hack. It really screwed with the internal transport system. Buses, Helicopters, beat up smogo's, all trying to get into the pick up slot at the same time. I also recall a community lot that had a private vehicle parked out front and became recalcitrant, because I had a teenager borrow a car for a shopping trip. Stupid teenager then took taxi home. That left a car in limbo, an owner out a car and a community lot that wouldn't let people drop off. I just hacked away at the downloads folder and deleted the problems. If SimPE can't help, there is always the good old delete command.

08-10-2007, 04:10 AM	#9
Miros1 Goddess for Life Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: NY State Posts: 3,303	Your post reminded me of a known OFB bug... The owner of a community lot could get their car "stuck" on the lot and result in all sorts of mayhem. I used to have the "build mode" problem when I'd tacnuke (deleteallchars) neighborhoods with owned lots. If a Sim tried to go to J'Adore Bakery (for example) on a date, you'd see them standing on the corner, but you'd be in Build Mode. When you find the secret society lot, open it up in SimPE and see if it's owned by MysterySim. If so, set it to none. You could also check the Characters folder for new Sims by sorting by name.

08-10-2007, 07:17 PM	#11
Miros1 Goddess for Life Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: NY State Posts: 3,303	Jane should be able to call for the Limo too...

08-12-2007, 04:22 AM	#13
shorty943 Banned Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 805	Did you take note of the lot name, flag it bad and place it in a new folder for SimPE investigations? I made that mistake quite a while back. Dud lot (for my game at least), deleted it, then bloody well installed the very same lot again by mistake, and gave myself the very same headache all over again. Note to self, make notes to self. Stupid.

08-12-2007, 04:34 AM	#15
shorty943 Banned Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 805	Ah, we live and learn.

08-12-2007, 09:19 PM	#18
Greg Da Guy Wut Owns Dis Joint Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Texas Posts: 3,566	Hmm... if greybeard sends her off to college, maybe he should consider moving with her. Now I'm tempted to duplicate that scenario in my game! __________________ Who are all these people and what do they know?

08-13-2007, 12:03 AM	#19
shorty943 Banned Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 805	She is a "townie", but my Winslows machine is currently non-functional. Purposely. So at the moment I can't even drag her name out of the ether. More system\network re-organising. Add another machine for Winslows only, get my big Iron running as a dedicated server under Linux with VMachines, no more dual booting. Then rebuild my game. That is all MS is to me, a games system. For real computing I use Linux, strictly. Even "on" the laptop I am writing this post on, is setup as a server. EEK, brain fade here. Senseless grammar highlighted. And why would someone set up a laptop as a server? The very same reason Sir Edmund Hillary climbed Mount Everest. To see if I could. Works beautifully actually. I do like a real computer operating system. Last edited by shorty943 : 08-13-2007 at 01:44 AM.