How Do I Front doors ignored by visitors

Front doors ignored by visitors

Hi everyone, i was wondering if any of you has encountered or is familiar with the front door-bug where the visitors/delivery people deliberately ignore the front doors opposite the mailbox and front porch and go for the side doors/ back doors instead. I happened to notice that they wouldn't go for a single door (like my back kitchen door) as an alternative, but twin doors (2 squares) instead e.g the sliding doors which i have put at the side of the solarium not meant for visitors and the groceryman to come a-knocking (which they insist on using anyway).

It's extremely annoying to put your resident sim waiting graciously atthe front porch to greet the visitors/accept the delivery only to have them casually taking the left turn AROUND the whole house just to get to the solarium doors.

As a result, i had to dismiss the sliding doors altogether just so the dumb sims will somehow ring the doorbell of my first and primary front doors. Bummer.

Please tell me if there's any way to fix this! Thanks!

 

Whenever I build a new house (or substantially remodel an existing one) I always make a save as soon as I have finished work. I then spend a few minutes testing that the doors work as intended by ordering pizza, chinese, groceries, nannies, inviting friends over, throwing a party, setting fire to the kitchen ... oh its great fun! If a visitor tries to go to the wrong door I abandon the game and reload, delete the offending door and replace it (thus with a "newer" door) and try again until all visitors always head for the door that I intended as the front door.

I really do not understand why Maxis couldn't have just made it so that the Front door would always be the door (that connects to the outside) nearest the mailbox by geometric straight line. It would have been easy to understand by the most players and easiest to manipulate in terms of design principles (eg you want a side entrance ... move the mailbox! )

 

Oh so basically, you will have to remove the offending doors in case they still 'prefer' those because they're shiny, and more 'accessible'(sic) since they're like miles from the mailbox? Sims just never cease to amaze me...Lol

As for now, i have removed the side doors and left only the VIP double doors (sorry if i can't remember the proper name) at the front facade of the house. As expected, they now esort to using those for entry and exit but i have a feeling that once i attempt to install the side ones, they would definitely wanna check them out even if it inconveniences them and annoys me greatly.

I wonder if letting them use the desired front door(s) for at least three consecutive days would somehow leave an imprint on their sim-memory that tells them 'front door GOOD, side door BAD!'

Anyhow, i'll try your suggestions and hopefully they will be smart enough to learn! Thanks.

 

Hi again people, bad news--it's still doing bad!

They keep resorting to the other doors everytime i put in new sliding doors at the side..even after i thought they have finally 'learnt'...Sigh.

Another thing, is it normal for a Sim friend to just stand nervously in front of your house after they come invited? They never rang the bell or knocked or whatever..it's usually only accidentally that i saw some dude/girl at the front porch and realized that i had invited them over in the first place. Maybe they would have wanted to ring the doorbell but were a lil nervous or something for no good reason (standing there, scratching right arm, glancing around the house, scratching left arm next, turning around 180 degrees..).

Update on my front door-bug..it seems to be more prominent with deliveries, while guests (i'm talking about individual sims that have been invited) would just stop in front of the house. As for party guests, i haven't checked nor tried yet. I somehow recall Mortimer Goth ringing my sliding door bell during the welcoming visit with the other peeps in Pleasantville though.

To KatAnubis, sorry if i forgot to thank you for recommending the patch though i don't know much about that one. Is that the specific name of it? I'm not exactly fond of downloading programs at the moment since my pc is somewhat vulnerable to attacks >.< I would try it though once i get all the protection i need. Thanks!

 

Actually I have to admit that I have also failed with those sliding doors. They're a darn nuisance and they've caused me to use some highly undignified language at times. I am afraid that when push comes to shove there are actually 2 completely different ways to play the game. One is a pure "game" where the emphasis is on sims' progress thru life as sim-ergonomically as possible (in which case houses are designed for the peculiar needs of sims rather than for live-human concepts of realism, practicality and esthetics). The alternative game is what I term "doll-house" mode in which the player anthropomorphizes the sims into "real" people, constructing for them environments that approximate as closely as the build/buy modes permit to real-life habitats. In such scenarios it is always going to be inevitable that mere cold code will sometimes fail to anticipate the intentions of the human designer.

In short. Give up and accept it. The only time a sim gets really het-up about a door is when he can't find one at all. Unless I want attractiveness in a door for my own sake (cos I'm the one who has to look at it) I use only use the cheapest door for all purposes.

 

GASP! N-no...bbut..ah well..i guess i shall now move on...even though my 'dollhouse' isnt perfect..and not for good reasons too -.- I must say it's pretty much like admitting one of your sims is doomed to hunger even though he's technically eating 24/7...and he eventually dies of starvation and all you hafta do is 'accept' it...GRRR All because of dumb technicalities (and the never-learning Sims too)

Right then, thanks a lot for your kind attention! Though i really wish there'd be a remedy to that glitch..hmm..

 

I forgot to suggest that you try Pescado's front door hack. (it's just a short code file that you place in the downloads folder - easily removed if you don't find it useful) See: http://www.variousimmers.net/vsimforum/showthread.php?t=227

It's not perfect either. To be honest it is why said to give up with sliding doors )unless you use them for all entrances with the oldest being the one you want as the front door) because if Pescado can't make a perfect fix for the the problem then no-one can.

 

In real life, most people's homes are NOT designed with a concept of practicality involved. Their layouts are often quite ghastly and inefficient, and the entire house is a disaster waiting to happen. People, however, tend to manage better in poorly arranged, squalid environments than sims do. Case and point: In real life, people can manage without a toilet and don't starve to death in the absence of a fridge. In the Sims, people pee their pants rather than going in the bushes or squatting over a hole, and start killing their own food if food isn't available in a fridge.

The primary source of sim-idiosyncracies is mostly in access control: In real life, it is not necessary to lock a fridge or baby in a specialized, access-controlled room because real visitors do not ransack these objects without permission.

 

The only thing I've been able to correlate to this behavior is the camera position at the time the visitor arrives. Whether this correlation is real or imagined, I don't know. But it seems that if you have the camera positioned where you can see most of the front yard, even if you can't actually see the visitor, the game assumes you can and doesn't send the visitor to the door. If the camera is positioned more inside the house, the visitor will ring the doorbell to alert you to his/her presence. Again, this is just what I have perceived in my own gameplay... no idea if it actually has anything to do with it.