Living In Bon Voyage Limbo

[Zirconia Wolf]

It's been a while since I've posted around here (RL complications) so I figured I would just pop in to both say "no, I'm not dead" & see if anyone else out there has taken the Bon Voyage plunge yet??? I purchased the very first copy sold at my local Best Buy store yesterday (I had to wait untill they opened up the still sealed shipping box) but am holding off on actually installing it untill all my favorite global mods are updated & I finish up my "pre-EP-pack-installation-ritual" completely.

I did, however download the offical Prima Guide & have been gleefully reading through it. If the Prima Guide is any indication, BV is going to be in the running for "Second Best Sims 2 EP Ever Realesed"! I refuse to give it the coveted 1st place slot as I still think it really sucks dryer lint that the Flickas & Woofums aren't allowed to go on vacation. (Shame on you, Maxis! Bad programers! No biscuit! ) That irritation aside, I am totally chomping at the proverbial bit to inflict BV into my Sims 2 experiance!

I will spare you a rambeling account of the highlights of the guide (as I am prone to do) & just finish this post with a listing of the 14 new Turn Ons/Offs that BV adds to the Sims world. (Greg: I know you won't care about the updated "occult" attractions, but check out the personality & career markers! As far as Sims & their screwy "attraction" features, I thought these where a long time coming...& rather suprising, considering Maxis's track record! )

Occult/Supernatural Updates
Robots
Zombiism
Lycanthropy (Pets)
Plantsimism (Seasons)

Career Status
Hard Worker (level 6 or higher job level)
Unemployed

Personality/Attributes
Athletic
Logical
Creative
Charismatic
Mechanical
Good at Cleaning
Great Cook

Bon Voyage Spesific
Jewlery

[Miros1]

Cool!

No, I'm not even buying it until all my hacks are updated.

Remember, TwoJeffs is over at InTeen now, and has his hacks almost ready for BV!

[yuppiesim]

I haven't bought it yet. I'm waiting to see if Circuit City has it on sale this weekend. I kick myself everytime I buy an expansion the day it is released...or sooner. I end up letting it set for a few days before I find the time to install it, and then by the time I get it installed its on sale somewhere.

Not this time. I'll wait until the Sunday ads come out.

[mikedelaney16]

I'll wait for the updated hacks and the patch.

[homerette]

I had totally forgotten! I guess I'll pick it up sometime this weekend. And in the meantime gather all of the hack updates. It's a love/hate thing.

[Greg]

Oh wow! So it's now possible for a sim to be attacted to something besides hair color and makeup!

[Zirconia Wolf]

I would love to say that I am planing on doing the smart thing for once & wait for the first (only??? ) Offical Patch to come out before installing BV...but truth be told, I plan on slapping it in as soon as I determine my game to be "New Pack Ready". Of course, considering how...er...controlling I can be about that preparation, I may very well luck out & not even be ready untill the 1st patch & all my "can't live without them" global mods are updated. Of course I now see that Maxis is planing yet another Stuff Pack (Teen Fashions) which bodes ill for seeing a version of Sim PE that I can actually use for some time...grrr....

Having TwoJeffs mods on the InTeen site will cut down on my "site hopping" greatly! Actually, InTeen, InSim (OBJ version), TwoJeffs stuff & a couple things from MTS2 are all I have on my "most likely to cause BFBVFS should I use an out of date version" list...& actually, the OBJ version of InSim will just not offer any updated options & I can safely remove InTeen as long as I don't have any pending Teen/Young Adult pregnacies & don't boot up any College Towns with residential famlies on them....

Originally Posted by Greg

Oh wow! So it's now possible for a sim to be attacted to something besides hair color and makeup!

Yes!! Isn't it about freaking time?????? I figure it will be worth the usual mod/hack/patch gathering ritual just to have some semi-normal "logic" to the crazy attraction system. Anyway, I'm kinda use to the whole "gathering the fixed stuff" thing. It may sound strange but- for me- it's just part of the whole Sims Expiriance!

Originally Posted by homerette

...It's a love/hate thing.

I couldn't have said it better myself!

[Greg]

I'm sure this will be another expansion pack that will wait in the wings for ages before I get around to installing it. Every time I think of installing another expansion pack, I remember Rose's advice: "You liked your game before you installed that thing, so just reinstall and get back to the game you liked!"

My primary motivation for installing any new expansion pack these days is to get any new animations they might have that would make for nifty screen shots in stories. Beyond that, it's mostly being able to build the buildings I want to illustrate stories. For me, the greatest appeal of Seasons is the ability to change the slope of a single section of roof!

I wish I could just install the features I want and leave out those that I don't.

[Miros1]

I strongly doubt their code is that modular!

[Kaylyn]

I'm installing it right now...the hacks I use aren't vital and since I recently did a wipe and reinstall, I'm not worried about losing anything important. Looks like fun, and hopefully the hacks (mainly Inteen and Insim) will be up and running before too long!

[Greg]

There's a thread at Insim to post any bugs found. So far it appears that if you use a certain version of Insim (I forget which) it's working right out of the box.

[Kaylyn]

(Ok, apparently the pics are too big or something, so I get ugly links instead of integrated pictures. Blah.)

So here's a few pics I took. I took the new maxis-made family, moved them into Veronaville, and sent them to Japan! I just got in the mood to play another game so I didn't do much, but here's what I got:



The Travelers leaving their house for the village. I love the vacation booking. You book a flight, and you can leave either immediately or book it for up to a week in advance (flights are cheaper that way). You book it like you do in the real world, starting at a 3 day/2 night trip and going up to I think 6 day/5 night.



They chose the four-star resort to stay in. They got a suite with a double bed and a single. You click on the door of the suite(s) you want to book them, then you click on the desk clerk to confirm. Dad and daughter hang out and watch TV while Mom takes a quick bath.



They decide to get out of their room for a while and head out to the hot springs, where they relax in one of the warm pools.



Then they head inside for a bite to eat, enjoying a classic sushi dish.

That's all I did for now, just playing around with it. There's an option in your memories panel now that lets you collect vacation memories. I'm assuming once you complete all the objectives (over 40!) you get something super special.

It definitely looks interesting. At first I wasn't sure because I never liked Vacation that much in the original game, but it seems really well-done here, like a whole new scenario akin to the University scenario. It encourages you to try everything in order to fill in all your vacation memories.

[Zirconia Wolf]

Oh wow!

Thanks for the pics!!! (I'm still trudging through my "prep work" but am optimistic that I'll be able to install BV by Sunday....)

Everything I've read (in the Prima Guide) seems to indicate that this EP is going to totally rock!! Your pictures just seem to confirm my opinion.

Originally Posted by Greg

There's a thread at Insim to post any bugs found. So far it appears that if you use a certain version of Insim (I forget which) it's working right out of the box.

I'll lay odds that it's the OBJ (Object) version of InSim that's working right from the get go. It's got no "global" coding or menu overrides unlike the DEST (Destination) or SIM (the "deluxe" version) variations so the only real "problems" it ever has at first is that any new values the EP added won't show up as tweakable yet. It's for this reason that I traded in my SIM version for the just as usefull OBJ version some time ago. I spend enough time keeping all my mods up to date as it is. It's nice to know that at least one of them I can "let slide" for a while...

[Miros1]

The hot springs sure look good!

[Greg]

I think I must have the OBJ version of the Insimenator. I can click on any open spot and "Spawn... <object>" to get all sorts of fantastic toys.

In fact, I keep discovered new toys because once in a while I'll want to do something and think, "I'll bet Eric thought of that!" He hasn't let me down yet!

[Kaylyn]

Greg, if you click on any open spot and can "Spawn..." something, it's the DEST version. The OBJ version is a bunch of objects that you can find by going to Electronics --> All and get those same goodies. The OBJ version is usually the safest one for the reasons Zirconia said earlier. At least, I guess. I know nothing about coding and hacking and whatnot! :P

[Greg]

Aha! Yes, I like the DEST feature. It's incredibly convenient to be able to just spawn what I want when I want it. That means that I do have installed some globals that might possibly be related to the problems people are reporting with Bon Voyage.

It makes sense that the OBJ version would be less likely to have a conflict with an expansion pack. The DEST version would need to install some global code that works for all sims and is ever-present in the game.

Nevertheless, I've found that the Insimenator is the most stable and reliable collection of game hacks I've ever seen. I thank you once again for prodding me to give it a go.

I always read bug reports with a high degree of skepticism. As often as not, someone will experience an anomaly in the game and then go barking up the wrong tree, and then the hyenas gather. I've even done that myself--speculated that a problem might be due to a certain hack only to be astounded by the number of people who will suddenly pop up with the Knowing Voice Of Authority to agree, only to learn that they were talking through their collective hat.

Once upon a time I feared that Jenflowers Teen Woohoo 6 hack had created The Bomb That Wiped Out Happy Valley, only to learn in subsequent investigation that nope, it was a bug in the core game; Maxis software. I must have posted two dozen disclaimers in response to the All-Knowing Hyenas after that one.

[Kaylyn]

Either way, InSim is exactly the same between all versions. The OBJ version has one master object you can place (which I never do anymore...) and each individual spawnable object that you used to have to spawn from the main object...now you can just place them in your attic, basement, wherever. It's a little more of a pain to have to hover over each object till I find the one I want (until I learn what they all look like), but it seems it was always the most highly recommended one so it's the one I've always used. I love it; it does everything testingcheats does but it seems less risky.

Which reminds me...you hear a lot of people talking about how boolprop can eventually screw up your game even with the most innocent cheats (such as forcing alien abduction). Does anyone know exactly how that happens?

[Zirconia Wolf]

Ah yes, the old "hyena" mentality! It's the very reason that I too tend to take any "bug" reports with a heaping spoonsfull of salt! (A mere grain is often not enough I've found...)

With Bon Voyage out now, I've already seen several panic stricken (sometimes four-letter-word laden) post about what a horrible, awful, computer eating terror it is. A little closer inspection of those posts however, has never failed to reveal that every single one of those posters failed to remove their now incompatible global mods first*!!!! Of course hyenas aren't very literate (or articulate ethier) so there is already a growing group of torch waving morons out there ready to storm the gates of Maxis & demand they release a patch right this minute for stuff Maxis didn't screw up in the first place.

This is not to say that don't anticipate BV needing an Offical Patch, but- all Maxis jokes aside- screaming at the designers about problems they had nothing whatsoever to do with is outright unfair. It could also lead to a longer-than-should-be delay in realeasing said patch as the designers now have to pick through all the "I'm-an-idiot-who-can't-grasp-the-whole-out-of-date-hack-concept" complaints to find the legitimate bug reports.

As to the whole boolprop thing, I've read several post warning about useing it "too often" (usually in regards to the teastingcheat cheat) but have yet to read exactly what/how things are suposed to happen. I also have no idea what the phrase "too often" means in terms of actual numbers. I pretty much rely on InSim, InTeen & a few other well-chosen mods for my in-game tweaking needs, as I really suck at spelling (dyslexic) & can't reliably enter the alphabet soup of commands Maxis thinks is so clever.


*I think my favorite complaints are those from people using the DEST (spawning) version of InSim crying about that rotten BV spawning objects all over their lots. Go figure...

[Kaylyn]

Another question: I've had to turn down a few sliders and turn smooth edges all the way down. I thought maybe it was my computer at first, but I have Vista with 2 gigs of RAM and 520 MB video memory, dual CPUs, pretty good all around. Other people with computers even better than mine are reporting the same thing. Anyone found anything about a fix for this? It seems my comp should be able to handle it just as well as it did Seasons, but I'm getting lag with sliders maxed (same settings as I had in Seasons) and the audio gets laggy as well when I'm scrolling around the neighborhood or even on a small unfurnished lot.