Poll: The so-called "Jump Bug" I'm curious how many of you have been struck by this. I looked around and didn't see much mention of it here, but over at thet official Sims 2 BBS it's getting pretty ugly. The bug is this: Once your Sims reach a certain level of memories (around 200) they start "jumping" out of any situation where they would chat with other Sims. Eating at tables, sitting in the hot tub, talking on the phone, watching tv, relaxing in bed, and so on. It renders the game almost unplayable. Maxis has implied that this is due to using the aging off cheat or using Elixir of Life excessively, however, I have had it strike a family that I've never used either the cheat or the Elixir with. They just accumulated a lot of memories because of their six children (seeing as every A+ for every child is a memory, they racked up 56 "A+" memories pretty quickly). So, please vote. I'm curious what other people's experiences have been.
I've had it strike both ways. The sims that have become afflicted by it all have something in common, though, and it's not elixir usage: It's a large quantity of memories. In my case, they occur around the time too many family members in seperate houses gather for a party, resulting in about a gazillion and one "family reunion" memories. In fact, the bug first appeared when I wasn't even playing them. I'm currently looking into the SimPE research, as I have absolutely no confidence in Maxis's ability to fix this in a timely manner. They've already demonstrated their incompetence here. *IF* they manage to fix it, and that is a *BIG* if, it certainly isn't expected any sooner than 6 to 8 weeks.
You have an odd translation of what Maxis has said about the problem. They say that the problem is probably due to a Sim having his/her memory too full. (And perhaps that's why using aging off or the Elixir may end up with more of the problem: they have more time to develop more memories. But you can certainly get them in other ways such as having a large family with good grades and meeting lots of people.) Answer code 16243 is the piece and this is a quote: "Why do my Sims 'pop' out of actions like talking, cuddling, and 'woohoo'? Question Why do my Sims 'pop' out of actions like talking, cuddling, and 'woohoo'? I select the action and when they go to do it they suddenly stop. If they were in the hot tub, bed, or couch (etc.) they will even 'pop' back a few spaces. Answer It appears that this issue has to do with the memories of a Sim in your lot growing past a point that the game can handle. Most times, this happens in one of two ways; either with use of the aging on|off cheat, or excessive use of the "Elixir of Life" Aspiration Bonus." I've seen it happen twice in my game, but the same couple seem to have gone back to their normal behavior. (Perhaps they just aren't meant to play chess together as that's the only time it's happened. They can kiss, talk and "woohoo" just fine.)
I find that very interesting. I have not used to aging off, but have used the Elixer of life on one of my Sims. The rest of them I have, so far, chosen to allow to "grow old" naturally. At least, as naturally as a Sim grows old. LOL
That happened to me!! I dont even use cheats! But it happened. it was annoying cuz i told him to relax on the bed and he "fell" out of it and was relaxing on the floor. THen when I tried to delete the bed in buy mode, it thought that it was still in use and i had to use the moveobjects cheat.
This havn't happened to me... yet. But my favourite sim is on page seven of her memories! (She have a maxxed career, been moving around a bot, and have three children of her own and six current grandchildren with more planned. I have kept them from getting too many A's in school, but everything still adds up in the long run.) How heavy is the impairment? She will not be able to eat with other sims? Not able to have sex ever again in any way? Will she be able to talk with other sims if it's "click on sim, chose dialouge option" rather then autochat such at at the dining table? If no on the later, I guess she'll be stuck with the buddy bunny quite soon. :( This ought to be a major priority for maxis, since it's bound to hurt almost EVERY player after a while.
I assume you mean Bigpages. My victims were all struck around the 8th page. It's about to start, if it hasn't already started to occur slightly. It will be impossible to Chat, or perform any actions that involve "Chat", including: Eating with other sims, sitting on couches with other sims, hot tubbing with other sims, talking on the phone with other sims, playing most games with other sims, and relaxing on the bed with another sim: It is, however, still possible to get laid, if you make sure the other sim you're about to relax with is distracted by having him perform a submenu action like "Read", preventing him from engaging in conversation. Also, other social interactions like Hug, Kiss, Talk->Gossip, etc, all still function: You just can't Chat, or do anything that causes Chat. You can still satisfy socials, but not by using the phone or any of the "passive" interactions. Maxis doesn't really have a firm sense of priorities, y'see. This should have been fixed YESTERDAY, but there's absolutely no evidence that anybody actually cares. If you live anywhere near the Maxis office, you might want to try organizing a pitchfork-and-torch demonstration. That tends to have a somewhat more personal impact.
I admit, I phrased that badly. What I meant was that Maxis seems to be trying to imply that most people who accumulate too many memories with a Sim did so by prolonging a Sim's life by using the Elixir or cheat code. They don't seem to want to accept that this is something that happens just by simply playing the game exactly the way it was intended to be played. And that angered me even more than the bug existing in the first place. That they seem to want to imply that it's something the players are doing wrong (making a Sim live too long) than just that it can happen simply by playing the game.
Well, "excessive memory accumulation" *CAN* easily be brought about by having a Sim live longer than it normally would, but this is merely one possible cause, and far from the most likely. Large families are by far a larger cause of memory spam than low-density life, even long life. As evidence of this, my primarily "First Sim" is unaffected, but his younger trophy wife with prior family connections *IS*. Yes, well, the implication is obvious: If they accepted that this bug happened, to a great many people, simply by playing the game exactly the way it was intended to be played, they'd implicitly have admitted that they failed to test the game. Therefore, in classic corporate refusal to admit responsibility, they try to deflect the blame to the players for doing something inappropriate. They forget one thing. In game programming, as long as no third-party programs are involved, the player can do no wrong. It is always the fault of the developer.
To me it seems weird that bugs like this are able to reach the general public, so the only logical explanation is indeed that Maxis did not spend enough time (or money) on testing. Another example I believe is the teddy bear object. I didn't get one, and I will not after reading about all the issues it's having. Maybe Maxis cannot get its "Game Tester" positions filled? Or was it done on purpose, "let's have the public test our game and bring out a SP to satisfy them". If that's the case, there'd better be some free objects and other features in that SP... Anyway, that's just my subjective view. PS: I don't work for a game development company although that would be a nice change
Well, yes, that's the OBVIOUS explanation. However, as long as Maxis refuses to admit it, they can continue to deny that this is the case. Classic corporate doublethink. While it certainly doesn't fool us clueful types, the general public *IS* fooled, and since the general public has no idea what we're saying anyway, they'll buy whatever lies Maxis spoonfeeds to them either explicitly, by denying that this is the case, or implicitly, by stonewalling.
I think that it is reall bad what is happening i mean for *** sake, you would think they would be able to sort out somthing like this before releasing a game. Mr.T would kill that Will Wright fool if he found him right now. Love Leny Henry Rollings
Ehr... As I used to tell my guildmates in EverQuest: It. Is. Only. A. Game. Calm! The! ***! Down! pretty please? Anyway, yes, of course it's *******. But I bet it's marketing department *******, not actual game developer *******. The corporation will send their *******s to take the consumer anger until the real staff gets around to fix the real problem. Complaining and ranting andout the problem might speed them up a little bit, but ranting about them being evil only sounds immature. Oh, and I have this bug too, now. Probably had it for a while. Sheena, and even Diane, pops out of dinner sometimes. (Sheena os the one at 8 large pages of memories, Diane is only at 7.) It doesn't happen all that often... yet. Do I assume correctly that it will get more frequent soon? Like, right away every time? That's actually good news. If it builds up gradually, then it's not the characters that are corrupted, it's just the game that can't handle their ammount of memories. And in that case, we the community might be able to solve the problem ourselves. If someone make a memory editor so we can make our sims forget stuff they don't need to remember, then the problem is solved for now.
I *AM* calm. See how I merely fester and seethe rather than exploding. I tend to become violent and incendiary when not calm. You don't want to see me not calm. See: Real staff not actually fixing problem.That's why there's even a need for a transparent attempt at stalling. Usually they'll often claim some delays like they're testing the patch, but I mean, come on: You actually believe that? You mean like they tested it the first time? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Maybe, but it's still fun. Besides, they *ARE* evil. Surely you can see that. I wouldn't mind seeing this as an in-game object for a career award, too. The Neuralyzer, for the Paranormal career track, boosts cleaning, wipes out people's memory. With a flashy effect.
Maxis is horrible with bugs Maxis never fixes bugs. Anyone remember the "water deal bug" in Sim City 3000? How people complained about it? How they didn't even bother to fix it for 3000 Unlimited? They're just lazy. They won't spend a cent fixing this bug until they think it will mean lost sales. Which is at least possible here, since people who experience this bug will end up less likely to buy expansion packs. . . I've just got to wonder what sort of incompetence led to the bug in the first place.
I didn't really play too much SC3K, so I'm not quite sure which water deal bug you're referring to, but thank you for confirming my viewpoint. I've been asserting for awhile now that the quality of Maxis's service is lousy, but certain people have claimed that this was unwarranted. This, however, is just yet another example of why what Maxis says cannot really be trusted, and until there is actual proof, even "official announcements" remain unsubstantiated rumors. I'm sure the money they invested in the subliminal ("subliminable") messages embedded in the game will insure that the expansion packs sell, patch or no patch. Actually, it sounds like a clever scheme to make you pay for the patch. Doesn't take much incompetence to have the bug, it just takes a complete lack of testing to find it. That's why I always have to laugh when a company claims that the patch is in testing....because it's such an obviously transparent and lame stalling tactic: I mean, come on, how dumb do they think people are? They expect us to believe they're testing things...like they did the FIRST time?
True, Maxis hardly ever releases patches and fixes bugs. This bug qualifies as an Inevitable Game-Breaking Bug. Very, very few games have IGBB's nowadays. This is something that should either not have made it out of develpment, or fixed in a patch weeks ago. Every other developer would have done so, why can't Maxis?
Well, there are two possibilities: One, that Maxis intentionally left this bug in place so they could sell the fix for it as an expansion pack, or two, they are simply incompetent and failed to even test the game. As much as I love a good paranoid conspiracy, there's no point in attributing to malice what can easily be explained by stupidity, so I'm going to go with "complete, bald-faced incompetence".
They aren't really "implying" anything. They are saying that if you have too many memories, this is what happens. It's not a value judgement thing. In testing, they don't have time to play like we do. (Shoot, I had to play for over 200 hours before I got the jump bug in this one family.) So, there are some things that get missed. (It would be much easier if you could get it in one day's worth of play, but it's difficult to do that.) So, they wouldn't have been able to anticipate something like this (with the accumulation of memories). But they are working to fix it (which means that they have to find out exactly why it happened in the first place. What part of the programming of memories is causing the problem, is the real question.)
