Odd newspaper boy/girl behaviour I don't know if it's a bug. I built the house in question on a regular lot, didn't use any cheats, didn't delete the mailbox, nothing... and the newspaper boy/girl keeps insisting on walking all the way around the house to its very back to leave the newspaper there. No big deal, I can move the newspaper - but I'd still like to know why they're doing that. Did this happen to anyone else?
This is pure speculation, but maybe rotating the lot in the neighbourhood screen has confuzzled your game, so the newspaper child thinks the back of the lot is the front?
I don't know. I didn't rotate the lot once I started building and didn't move it anywhere else, either. Plus, the lot itself is at a place where it can only face one way - there are no junctions or street crossings nearby. I've used this lot and lot size, as well as the basic building style, a couple of times before in regular and custom neighbourhoods, and this never happened.
This looks like the same kind of behaviour I mentioned previously. It looks like the paper kid is trying to leave the paper by the kitchen door. The route he is using fails because there are no stairs at the point at which he gives up. What I can see is that you have a fence directly next to the sidewalk concrete. If I am correct this can only be done by using the cheat MoveObjects on. Because of this you have prevented the paper boy from using his preferred drop zone: the squares immediate inside the pavement. Of course -- you will say -- he can get to those squares ... he can go thru the gate, can't he? Yes ... but ... these are sims we are talking about. This is more of a bug than anything else IMHO. One way you can stop it is to have a front entrance to the house on the front elevation and fence off the back yard so that all other entrances to the house are only accessible from the mailbox by going thru the house. That design stops a number of annoying behaviours: Headmaster heads staright for a hot tub or swings in backyard and is uncatchable to be welcomed and entertained. Grocery delivery person walks all the way around back of house while the recipient passes out from sleep exhaustion waiting for the "accept delivery" option to become available. Ditto pizza person and any other vsiting NPC (except evil ones like the repo man and social worker TS1 had this annoyance in spades. No matter how a house was designed a sim would always take the longest possible route from the mailbox to a door before ringing the doorbell. If you fenced off the backyard's doors visitors would find their way into the garden but be unable to get from backyard to street ... because that involved going thru the house. Nice looking house by the way.
Hm. Annoying. Especially since it limits the way one can build. It's just odd because no matter which way the "front" door of my other houses face, the paper people leave the paper by the mailbox. They don't even go into the front yard, especially not if there's a fence around the house. Also... visitors still use the regular door and don't end up in the backyard. I had my Sim order groceries and the delivery guy, yep, came to the correct door. Ah well... I suppose applying earth logic here won't work.
Backwards how? The main entrance is on the side of the house - it doesn't face the street. The second door, the kitchen door, is also on the side of the house, like so: --- | | | | D D | | | | --- \/ ------ Street ------ Fear my ASCII. Anyway... the thing that bugs me, sort of, is that only in THIS house, this is happening. I'll try Mirelly's suggestions, but if that means I have to change too much, I'll just manually move the stupid newspaper.
Sorry I edited my message ... please re-check it ... I added new information. What I can see is that you have a fence directly next to the sidewalk concrete. If I am correct this can only be done by using the cheat MoveObjects on. Because of this you have prevented the paper boy from using his preferred drop zone: the squares immediate inside the pavement. Of course -- you will say -- he can get to those squares ... he can go thru the gate, can't he? Yes ... but ... these are sims we are talking about.
This might sound strange, but I never used the MoveObjects on cheat. Ever. I've always been able to draw a fence right on the last square before the sidewalk, so to speak. Anyway... instead of fencing off the backyard, I'll just move the fence one square into the territory. Unless the paper people act like Pavlov dogs, they should now have their 'favourite dropping place' back. Thanks for the suggestions, however.
i just want to say that that house is really great!! no matter how many times i try to make a nice mansion, it just doesn't look...real. like, it doesn't look like anybody would live in such a mansion in real life. but, since we have to make the house playable for our brain-dead sims, i guess it sorta decreases the nice..ness of the house.
I've had a similiar experience with visitors and delivery people. They will walk all the way around to the back door to ring the doorbell, instead of using the front door which is obviously much closer. I'm not sure if it's the type of door that they prefer to ring at or not. It seems that they like the two tile "Garden" type door, with the many panes (forgot the name, sorry!), and they'll always go to that one over a single tile door even though it's the one closest to the street. It IS kind of annoying... =)
Behavior linked to fences I notice you have a lot of fencing in that yard. I'm not saying you cheated or anything, but I have noticed fencing can create strange behavior in NPCs. I once made a mall no NPC could enter / level because of some fencing I thought was perfectly safe. I fixed it after my Sim returned home. The reason is because the NPC AI is pretty linear--it wants to path to one spot and if it can't do that it goes a little nuts. So, I don't know... maybe you can experiment with fencing or just shrug and say "Such is Sim life!"
Actually, the fencing around the house is pretty "boringly" normal and a straightforward square - it just looks odd in places because I elevated the terrain around the house. As for the garden path 'fencing'... I wonder if fences that aren't really fences influence Sims. If I tell the Sim living in that house to run to the trash bin outside, she'll ignore the 'fence' along the sides of the two garden paths completely and walk right over them as if they weren't there. Same for that infernal paper person, actually. Another thing that might be interesting to find out is if once the paper person delivered the newspaper to another spot, they'll keep delivering to that spot. I moved the front fence two spaces into the terrain, leaving them enough room to leave the newspaper there... but the paper people still run to the back of the house. Ah well. I've pretty much resigned myself to just moving the paper manually, because I *like* that yard ( and had one hell of a time with the stairs on the elevated terrain ). And if I forget the paper, well, I'll have a compost heap pretty soon. Thanks for everyone's suggestions though!
The game does allow you to put the fence right next to the sidewalk (unlike the sides and back, where you have to put it one in from the actual edge.) However, if you have a fence by the front lawn where the papercarrier wants to put it (which is a spot of about 3 squares on that front area), they will go around the fence and try to put it there. But if they can't put it there (such as because there are rosebushes there), they do pick odd places. The route for them is different than it is for the delivery people. The delivery people are keyed to put it by a door, whereas the paperpeople are supposed to put it on lawn or walkway. However, why your paperperson is putting it all the way to the back it not at all clear.
Maybe something you can try to fix the paperboy problem is deleting the 2 outside doors and then buying new doors starting with your "front" door first then your "back" door. I've had this issue a few times and I think its something to do with the order of placing your doors. Dunno if this will help tho. YMMV
