I say let 'em learn at college.

I'm not sure if you guys have seen this, but there's an actual Bloo skin thing for download. There's a video on YouTube: http://youtube.com/watch?v=5WZaI16je10

I don't play the sims nor have I ever touched the game before, but I've seen demos and screencaps and hopefully you guys can enjoy this more than me ^^;

I'm all for sending them to Uni provided you chronicle their experiences there. How would some of the meaner friends get along with the scary guys with 'hawks, I wonder?

I just wanted to say that the Sims here are awesome! I even went to the old forum and read the "story" from the beginning. The pictures are so much fun, even though they're not really the Foster's gang, it's almost as if seeing real pictures of them, as if they're real. Sorry, does that make me a geek? Oh well... It's just so cool, I love it. :D

Look forward to the next updates! :goo:

lOL this is so funny nice job xD!

Help!
 

Guys, there's a problem with the game, which is why I haven't posted anything new here for awhile. Specifically, the game won't go any farther than the loading screen before crashing. The disks work fine on my laptop. The problem is that Autorun.exe has become corrupt; how it did that while I was in San Diego is beyond me but it did, so the Foster's Valley saga is on hiatus. Nothing I've tried has made any difference. This is killing me. Can anybody help? :(

Hmm... that's interesting. I've had a similar problem since I installed the H&M stuff pack.

I'm not sure what to do; I think I might have had a corrupt download or something.

If anyone has a suggestion, can you please post it?

-Marty :goo:

I hope you've asked this on a Sims 2 forum and not just here. ;)

So you've tried backing up the game, and reinstalling the discs, and restoring the saved game?

Well I was talking to Cassini. I know he belongs to at least one Sims 2 forum.

I've asked here and there but have not yet found a solution that works. I'm hoping to avoid yet another four-hour reinstall ordeal; in any case, if the problem is Autorun.exe I'm not sure that a reinstall would work.

I hate posting back-to-back. Anyway, I'll be making yet another attempt to get the game running again in the next day or so; in the meantime, I dug up some old pics that I thought y'all might find borderline amusing.

Cheese goes to Wal-Mart:

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1...90125/Bx01.jpg

You can almost hear him saying, "I like wax". Not much I can add to that. It wasn't a very exciting trip; he went in, bought groceries and a new outfit, had a cup of coffee, and went home. Not everything in the game is high adventure, although I'll give him credit, his house has more graphics glitches than any other in the Valley, except for Foster's.

The incredible sinking dog:

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1...90125/Bx02.jpg

It happens everytime I install a new Expansion Pack or a new game patch. Every pet in the game sinks into the floor. I have no idea why this happens, but it's harmless; I unpause the game, they pop right out. This pic was taken in the third floor rec room, which didn't get too much use until I put the bubble blower in there. Coco now spends a lot of free time in this room.

The incredible shrinking Madam:

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1...90125/Bx03.jpg

Nope, it's not a glitch, it's the same trick I use to make Wilt taller, only in reverse. Way in reverse. Watching her walk while shrunk like this was very weird. After she managed to climb into a chair I stretched her back to her normal size and this was the result:

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1...90125/Bx04.jpg

It's either another glitch or maybe Bendy added helium to the chili. Dishes, too, have been known to float upon occasion:

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1...90125/Bx05.jpg

I can imagine Eduardo saying "I no am seeing this, I no am seeing this" to himself as he cleaned up the lunch dishes. If he saw this on the show he'd scream, "Aaaaagh! The dishes! They is haunted!" and dive out the nearest window. 8D

Bendy in the park:

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1...90125/Bx06.jpg

The puddle is not of his own making, but that didn't stop him. When he started splashing around in it, it covered one square; now it covers seven. It was at nine or ten when he finally got bored with it and wandered off.

Last, but not least, a pic of my anime girl, Florah Gustafsen:

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1...90125/Bx07.jpg

Prior to leaving home for college, Florah had taken up the practice of yoga. Being something of an exhibitionist, she had no qualms about getting into weird yoga postions out in the yard where the neighbors could see her. Shown here on the right is her father Bjorn, who has just returned from work with a promotion and a raise and is now having a WTF? moment. 8D

That's all for now. More to come soon, hopefully. :D

Haha, love the Madame F. caps, and the mention of Bendy putting helium in the chili. LOL!! Aren't glitches fun? When they're not making our life miserable, that is. Hope you're able to get the game up and running again soon! :bloosmirk:

LOL Short Madame Foster. XDD

I'm scared at just imagining how tall Wilt is now...XD

BTW, what is this trick that you used? Like, is there a code or something?

I LOVE the Madame Foster pic. Sounds like something I'd have to do for my self Sim...

It's supposed to be better to alter Sim heights directly in SimPE. I haven't messed with heights yet but I plan to eventually.

I've never tried it with SimPE, partially out of fear of disfiguring them. The cheat code works well enough; I have to redo it everytime I enter the lot but the effects are immediate, and I can fiddle with it until I get a decent result. Hopefully there will be a "Set height and weight" feature in both CAS and Body Shop when Sims 3 is released.

Yes, that would be awesome! I'm tired of everyone being the same height and weight type.

Thanks Mysterious Girl - now I can make myself taller! XD

lol Or something about flying saucers. [rimshot]

Get it, GET IT? Hahahaa I r hilarious.

Warning!
 

Sims 2 players: If you have the Bon Voyage Expansion Pack installed on your computer, you need to read this immediately; the game has a very serious glitch:

http://bbs.thesims2.ea.com/community...em.127,item.23

I'm actually thankful that my game isn't working; I've had no reason to install the expansion.

Shame on you, EA Games. :nono:

Woah! That's one glitch! :O

(Did the article say it happened in University as well? Dang.)

It did, but there's a patch available for University at the Sims 2 site. I never had the problem because I installed Nightlife before University. No patch exists for Bon Voyage at present, so if you want to use it then you should download the hack mentioned in the link above. I have used many of J. M. Pescado's hacks and mods without any problems whatsoever; the man definitely knows what he's doing (which is more than I can say for Maxis right now) so you can use it without worry. Just remember to remove it before installing the "official" patch.

I wasn't going to buy this one for a while (I'd rather get a new video card for my desktop and move the game off of my laptop first). But geez. :P Thanks for the heads-up, I glanced at the Insim forum once looking for news of any major glitches but I guess this one hadn't been found yet.

I installed it on my laptop but I've done nothing with it, fortunately, so no harm done. JMP's hack goes in next. In the meantime, Bon Voyage is staying off my main system and my old system. What is it with this game? Doesn't EA think it might be better to delay a release for a few months and get it right? Are timetables that important? Stars help us all when Sims 3 comes out.

Okay, I've changed my mind about Bon Voyage. This game apparently has more problems than I have posts, and while the MATY hack works fine, it only fixes one issue. If you have the game, don't install it; if you've already installed it, don't play it. Wait for the patch, and wait to hear if it works. This game is a disaster, and I will have nothing to do with it until it's fixed, and fixed right.

Okay. I still haven't bought it so I'm good.

D:


Ive already started playing it... :[

I'd leave it alone until the patch comes out; it's not worth losing your game.

As things stand with me, I have the game on three different computers and the only one that it's working on is the ancient Gateway Profile 4. My main system keeps giving me the Blue Screen Of Death and the laptop is a sad joke. The fact that my old system runs it at all is very surprising; the graphics aren't pretty but the game does work, even though it shouldn't. I got it into my head to see what would happen if I added a second RAM card to the unit; it had been operating with 512 MB. So off I went to Best Buy, where I shelled out too much money to bring my RAM up to a full gigabyte. Oh my stars what a difference! The game doesn't run or load noticeably faster, but the improvement in the graphics was almost like the difference between regular TV and High-Definition. It looks almost as good as it did on my other two systems. I think it might help my laptop game considerably. I am not convinced that additional RAM will make any difference on my main computer, as I still don't know what's causing the crashes, but I suppose it's worth a shot. Time to call my accountant again. :)

I've just learned today that the game includes a program called SecuROM on every copy of Bon Voyage and H&M Stuff. More details are available here:

http://bbs.thesims2.ea.com/community...irectoryID=189

and here:

http://bbs.thesims2.ea.com/community...irectoryID=189

and elsewhere on the main Sims 2 site. This program is apparently classified as malware; it can leave your system open to hackers and render everything you have vulnerable to attack. The only way to be rid of it is to reformat your system and not reinstall either Bon Voyage or H&M Stuff. As I have the latter installed on my system, at this point I no longer know if Foster's Valley can be saved. I will try everything I can but right now the prospects are not good.

This sentence makes me afraid of what might happen.

:(

'Nuff said.

Took the words right out of my mouth. >:(

I just got an email from EA asking me to participate in a focus group/game testing of a new Sims game this Saturday. It's only about 2 hours from here and I'm going to respond to the message saying I'm interested.

I'd love to hear more about it. Sims 3 possibly? :)

If you meet the exec who OK'd adding SecuROM to the game, shoot him.

I'll bring my bow, lol.

The email says:

I sent them my info, now to wait and see if I'm "qualified"...

I'm curious as to how you came to their attention. Do you subscribe to one of their newsletters?

I am registered at both eagames.com and thesims2.com, and I probably entered my zip code there so they knew I was close enough to attend. I also always register all my games so they know I have several Sims 2 titles.

I'd be more than willing to hop on a plane to attend something like that... probably not a good idea right now, though. I've been backing up files today in preparation for reformatting my system sometime tomorrow. I'm not happy about this, not at all. :(

A patch is out for Bon Voyage, by the way, not that I'll ever need it as I have no intention of ever installing the damn expansion pack and it's vicious spyware.

So maybe, just maybe, they will return.

By they I mean the Foster's Valley Sims.

Unfortunately, it's not that simple. I won't bore anyone with the technicalities, but I can't run the Valley or any of my other neighborhoods without reinstalling the H&M Stuff pack, which also contains the SecuROM program. I'm not installing or reinstalling anything that's going to force that program down my throat. I have all the data saved, so I may be able to retrieve it at a later date, presumably sometime after Quaxi updates the SimPE program, but unless EA sees the error of their ways and releases a version of H&M Stuff that does not include SecuROM, Foster's Valley and everything else I've done is effectively shut down. I'll rebuild, of course, but I will never forgive them for this. :frankiemad:

Everyone reading this post is encouraged to boycott all EA Games products until such time as the company relents and agrees to never use SecuROM or any similar programs on their products again. I was prepared to spend an enormous amount of money on their upcoming Sims 3 game, as were a lot of other people; they will get nothing from me until I am convinced that their products are glitch-free and safe. :frankiemad: