Glitch -White/gray oval object on ground that doesn’t belong

After getting the Supernatural expansion pack, I started seeing these whitish/gray oval objects on the ground that I knew were rendering glitches because they would have rendering issues as you would rotate your view around it. It definitely seemed out of place, not part of the normal view or like any normal object. Hovering over it did not bring up any info, and I was in a community lot at the time, so I couldn’t go to Buy mode to see what it was. Just now I saw two of the ovals in my Sim’s home. I went to buy mode to try to pick it up, but it said object was in use. I then used the MoveObjects on cheat to pick up the object. It is described as a Social Jig 2 person. A quick search brought up a forum post about it (back in August 2011). The poster says it’s something the game uses to make sure two sims are positioned correctly for a social interaction, and you shouldn’t be able to see it, because the game should delete it after the social interaction is over. Weird how I just started seeing them in Supernatural. Another forum poster said it was blocking traffic, so if this is the case I guess I’ll have to use the MoveObjects cheat to delete it.

Sims 3 – Story Progression and Graphics

I finally decided to go ahead and buy the Sims 3. I wasn’t sure how much time I’d have to play it, or if it was really different enough from the Sims 2 to be worth it. I must say, it’s almost like a whole new game. Since the game centers around the town as a whole instead of the household, there’s always a lot more going on at once. Which makes the performance seem a little slow. Perhaps I should lower some of the graphic settings to see if that will help. But it already seems like the graphics are not as detailed as the Sims 2 unless you are zoomed in very close (and I stay a little zoomed out to see everything). An interesting concept is Story Progression. I guess it would be handy to have all your Sims friends grow up at the same time he/she does.  I tried it for a few days, but by the time I spend some time with one family, all the kids are grown up in another family, or some adults are almost elders and haven’t gotten very far in their careers. I would prefer having a chance to play each family throughout their development and guide them in what they do. So what if it means that my least favorite families are ‘left behind’ and never age. I try to make my rounds to each family. Luckily we can disable Story Progression. One disadvantage is that when you switch the ‘Active Household’, the current family loses their wishes that you’ve chosen. Not too big a deal, but when I come back to the family I’d want it to be the same as I left it. Another annoyance is how buying groceries and books work. Gone are the days where we can buy a bookshelf with all the books we’d ever need to learn skills. We have to buy each book separately based on the skill level we want to get to! And they are expensive!! And now you have to buy cooking ingredients separately based on the meals you want to make. Very annoying. Each family has a difficulty level — seems like based on the number of family members. Overall I think this game is more difficult, compared to the Sims 2. Needs may be easier to fulfill, but career progression (and therefore the lifetime wish) is so much harder. But these difficulties make the game more realistic and sophisticated (and still fun), so I won’t be switching back to the Sims 2 quite yet.