Trouble With Egypt Library Under the Sands – no one answers door

I think there’s a problem with the Library Under the Sands adventure or quest in Egypt. I completed it for one sim, but then a different sim got the same quest, and no one answers the door at the house with the library in it. I can “Look in Window” and see someone in there, but not the person I’m supposed to talk to. I now have to talk to the same person to deliver a relic, and his icon is above the house, but he doesn’t answer the door. I found an article here that explains a possible work-around: GameFAQs – Library Under the Sands – Broken. It says that the owner of the house is a merchant and is constantly away from the house. It suggests going into Edit mode to add another Sim to the house who will be able to answer the door for you. I’m not sure if this will work, because I see someone in the house who isn’t answering the door. My Sim knocks on the door and an icon of the correct contact appears in the queue, as if he’s going to greet my Sim. But then the queue icon disappears, and my Sim is left standing on the porch waiting. I’ll try out the work-around to see if that helps. Otherwise you have to right-click on the quest to cancel it.

World Adventures Tombs Not Reset for Next Sim

I got the Sims 3 World Adventures expansion pack for Christmas! It is fun so far! I picked a single-Sim family in Riverview and took her to Egypt. I completed some adventure quests, and worked through the biggest pyramid tomb and the Sphinx. Then I decided to create a sim perfect for adventuring: including the Adventurous, Brave, Loves the Outdoors, and Friendly traits. I sent her to Egypt and realized the tombs that the first sim completed are still completed! So we’ll only have to go through them once per neighborhood, and all the other Sims will be able to go right through? There are still relics, gems, and ancient coins to collect, but all of the hidden doors are opened and traps disabled (whatever the first sim completed). I thought it would be reset for each Sim or family who visits. I guess it’s kind of nice, since it may get old doing the same steps for each sim. If one sim releases a mummy, will it still be walking around for the next sim?

Dirty Dishes Pile Up on Community Lots

Lately I’ve noticed a lot of dirty dishes on some of the community lots –  at Central park and especially the pool:

Dirty Dishes at the pool
Dirty Dishes at the pool

This has to be a bug! I tried searching the internet for why this happens and what to do about it. I found one article here: http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/72278.page which suggests entering build/buy mode in the lot and deleting the dishes or dragging them onto the trash can. But this didn’t seem to work. It also mentions bringing your Neat sims to the lot and have them clean up.  I did this, but I still had to manually tell him to clean up each plate. I brought the whole family over and everyone helped.  This just about took a whole Sim day to complete. There were some plates on the other side of the stone wall too! So when I went into Build mode on the lot (Edit Town– select the lot — Enter Build mode button), I added another trash can and moved the plates closer so the Sims didn’t have to walk as far.

Someone on the forum believes there is an automatic clean-up process on community lots, but only when it goes inactive for a certain amount of time. And this means none of the sims can enter the lot, and your camera view can’t even view the lot. I don’t think this is really feasible. I’m always zooming out into the full map mode, which shows the pool from far away. My sims may not visit a community lot for several sim days at a time, but it must be viewing the lots from the full neighborhood view and preventing the dishes from automatically disappearing. It’s so annoying, it has to be a bug! I don’t want my sims to have to clean up every time they are there, and the dishes are getting too out of hand to ignore!  They get the negative moodlet every time. Is there any way to hire a maid on community lots?

Download Shockwave Player 11 – Missing Xtra 3D

I was trying to view a free landscape designer, BBC Gardening Design, which requires the Shockwave Player. I must not have had the right version for Firefox, and it prompted me to install version 11. The automatic install failed, and I went to Adobe’s site for a manual install of Shockwave. But the landscape application said, “this application requires an Xtra (Shockwave 3D) that either does not exist or failed to initialize”. So I did some searching and finally came to a post that said I needed to download the FULL version of shockwave that includes more Xtras. Here’s the direct link for English; it has Win95 in the title but I hoped it still worked on Vista. Here’s an alternate downloads page for Shockwave players.  Turns out, there were still more Xtras that were missing when I tried it in Firefox! I decided to try the Slim version in Internet Explorer and guess what, it seems to work. Maybe I need to restart Firefox. Why don’t they just make the application in Silverlight, it seems much easier to install!!

Get Friend to Move In With You

Why is getting a friend to move in with you so difficult? My sim Melanie began a relationship with the maid, Ronny. They were good friends, so I advanced it to boyfriend/girlfriend status. I think this was when Melanie was a young adult, and who knows what age the maid was.  I moved her out of her parents’ house so she could go live with Ronny, and she has a wish to ‘Move in with Ronny’ but the option never becomes available. I can’t find where he lives in the neighborhood in order to merge the households manually, so I think he’s a ‘Townie’. Is this the reason they can’t move in together? Or perhaps he’s still a young adult while she’s an adult now, and he’s not allowed to move in yet. I’ve read on Yahoo Answers that you just need to do numerous romantic interactions to get the Move In option. I’ve done this before with Mortimer and Bella Goth and it worked. But I don’t think they should have to be in a romantic relationship in order to move in together; the Sims 2 game allowed the interaction as long as they were good friends, and it seemed so much easier. And it was very easy to make a Townie move in with you, as long as they were the right age. I did turn off aging so I could work on this issue, but maybe I have to wait until Ronny ages. How can I tell if he’s a young adult or adult?

Also, how are you supposed to know when you’re in a relationship with someone who’s much older than you? I wouldn’t want to get married to someone if they’ll soon become an elder and won’t be able to start a family.  Relationships without the Story Progression just seemed so much easier.  You knew what age everybody was. Along with the issues with disabling Story Progression, and I’m getting pretty annoyed with the bugs in this game!

Interact or Talk with Sitting Sims

There are not many interactions available between a standing sim and a sitting sim. One I’ve seen is the ‘Call Over’ if the sims are far away from each other. But I would think all of the interactions would be available, and the sitting sim would just stand up before performing the interaction. If you’re visiting a Sim and they sit down, you won’t be able to talk to them! You’ll have to sit down as well and see what options are available then. For example, if you both sit down in front of the TV there should be several things to talk about. But I think a standing sim should still be able to talk to a sitting sim. It seems like a bug to me.

Slower to Advance in Sims 3 Careers!

It seems like it takes much longer to advance in any given career in the Sims 3. Many sims have a lifetime wish to reach a top-level in a career. But if you don’t start them at an early age and become very dedicated to advancing, they might not reach the top level in a lifetime. Ideally I’d want them to reach the top, retire, and have some time to enjoy retired life before kicking the bucket. I know that the mood they have when going to work is very important, so I make sure the need bars are as high as possible before they leave. You also try to learn the appropriate skills and maintain relationships, as necessary. I thought the ‘Take it Easy’ work option would help performance by improving their mood, but the ‘Work Hard’ option must be better for performance, if you can afford to be stressed out. As long as you go to work happy, the stress out moodlet won’t have much of an effect on your mood. With all the dedication to work, how would a couple find time to start a family? I prefer to start a sim working on a particular lifetime wish or goal at a young age. But with the “Story Progression” option, it can be hard to find kids or teens in the neighborhood. Are you expected to just create a new family each time you want to switch families?  The Sims is a time management game — how do you manage your time?

Keeping Friends – Shortcuts to Calling

I just thought to myself, it would be nice if we could click on a friend’s icon and have menu options to call or invite them over. Well, in the Sims 3 we can!  Instead of going to your inventory and trying to find your friend in the phone’s list, just find the icon of the friend in your Sims’ friend panel and click to see the call menu.  Since the friends are ordered by how good a friend they are, this way you can find a relationship that needs attention. Or if you’re working on gaining new friends, see who has the highest relationship but is not a friend yet. The ‘Invite Over’ option is disabled if you aren’t home at the moment, or if the friend is at work! This is even true if you haven’t yet discovered your friend’s career!  For keeping track of your sims’ availability in The Sims 2,  I created SimAddy. But it seems you will be able to tell when your friend is available for calling now! You never would have known about this feature if you always use the phone for calling.

Sims 3: Where is Riverview Neighborhood?

I saw a ‘Riverview’ neighborhood mentioned in several articles, but when I went into the New Game option of Sims 3 and looked at the neighborhoods, it only had Sunset Valley. I searched for it online and some articles said it was available when you registered for the game. But I don’t remember seeing it.  So if you never got it either, you can download it for free from The Sims 3 Store like I did. But  wait! you can’t search for Riverview in the store search feature! If you go to the Sims Help and search for Riverview there, you’ll read the information about it and find the download link.  Here’s the link to the download page (you must register your game before downloading):  Download Riverview

Beds, Sleeping, Ghosts, and Girlfriends

I found a few small annoyances today dealing with beds and sleeping.

How do you get a guest to go to bed or sleep?

There is an option to invite a friend to stay over. I assume this means stay the night. Mortimer Goth asked Bella to stay over, and at first there wasn’t a spare bed. So I bought another single bed and a double bed, since I wasn’t sure if she needed her own or had to share with Mortimer. Even though she was complaining that she was tired, she wouldn’t go to bed!  Mortimer could invite her to cuddle, but not to sleep.

How do you get a ghost off a bed?

Sometimes you can talk to ghosts, but when they’re asleep on your bed, there are no interactions! You can’t even go to buy mode and move the bed around. There was only one ghost on a double bed, and Mortimer couldn’t seem to use the bed at all!