Sims 3 Island Paradise – How to get to another island

I installed the Island Paradise expansion pack today! I can’t wait to try all the different features in this one, like scuba diving, traveling to different islands, finding map fragments to get to those uncharted islands I see hidden in the mist, and owning a successful resort!!

One thing I wondered about was how a typical Sim would be able to get from one island to another to get to the shopping over there. Would they need to swim over? Would they need to buy a boat? No! There’s a taxi boat that automatically picks them up!

Taxi Boat
Taxi Boat

Bugs and Problems with Sims 3 Patch 1.5

This latest patch, 1.5 is causing a lot of problems for people. I had trouble getting through the installer since it was such a large patch this time, over 1 GB! I waited a day or so and was able to install it. Luckily I don’t have major problems like others have reported. I didn’t worry about any saved games because I recently had to re-install all of the Sims on a new hard drive. But I have found a few minor issues:

Missing Badges/Achievements in Game Profile Menu

Several of my badges/achievements are listed in the Game profile menu as Not completed when I know they are completed, and the website also reports them as completed. This is the most annoying because I am working towards achieving all badges, and don’t want to keep checking the website for ones I’m truly missing.

Rendering Issue Makes Sims look like Little People

A rendering issue causes some neighborhood adult sims to appear like little people – about half the size of normal sims.

FIX: According to this post on EA forums, just replace the elder’s cane with a new cane. It appears to have worked for me.

Others have reported things like:

Missing Travel Option

No Travel option from the phone or computer — the menu options in the phone have been reorganized. I found Travel under Real Estate and Travel Services… option. I haven’t tried it out to see if it still works.

Invisible Sims

I’ve seen this before before this patch, but rarely. Try resetting the Sim.

Hopefully there will be another patch coming soon to fix these!

Seasons – Can Sims Even Get Sunburns?

How do you get a Sim sunburned in the Sims 3 Seasons?? I’m thinking it’s a bug in the game because my Sims take a nap outside in their bathing suit in 90 degree weather and only get a sun tan. I’m trying to complete the ‘Fair Skinned’ badge of getting a sunburn and haven’t been able to. Just wondering if anyone has been able to yet.

Thumbnail of Ghost Friends are Missing or Disappear

I noticed this in the Supernatural expansion pack. Your Sim meets some ghosts, but when they are not in the same lot as your Sim anymore, their thumbnail picture disappears from your Sim’s acquaintances panel. You can still call them by doing the ‘Call Sim’ option on your phone. But I click on the thumbnail image as a shortcut to calling them or inviting them over. And this bug is very annoying!

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.

Gem Skull Cut, Soulpeace, Toadify, Unicorns, oh my!

Here are a few screenshots of my latest adventures (Supernatural EP)!

While attempting to collect one of every type of Gem, I found out on Carl’s Sims Guide that one of the display cases has a special function to transform a set of gems into a Skull Cut or a Soulpeace Gem! So I had to give it a try.

Add a combination of gems and gem cuts, then click ‘Activate’


The transfiguration can create Skulls or a raw Soulpeace gem (in the corner is Brilliant cut).

If you get toadified, you can catch some flies at the beehives.


Orb of Answers
I finally figured out what the Orb of Answers is from a forum.

Ghost Holds a Baby
I didn’t think a ghost would be able to hold a baby!

Adopt 6 Strays – Stray Animal is Going Home??

I would love to be able to adopt stray animals in the Sims, but it seems impossibly hard to do. First of all, even with the ‘Strays are Welcome’ gnomes, there aren’t that many visits from stray animals. When one comes, a Sim may get to do a few interactions with it, but the cat or dog suddenly leaves the lot, and the tool-tip over the disabled social interactions say the animal is “Going Home”. If it’s a stray, how can it have a home?!?! This is so frustrating! Now my Sim is an animal lover and has the Adopt 6 Strays Lifetime Wish. She has become acquainted with a few wild horses in the neighborhood, but she’s having a hard time building up the relationship high enough to even pet them! I think finally she’s able to let them sniff her hand without them running away. She met a unicorn once and was able to build up the relationship much faster than normal horses! I’ve been able to find the wild horses in the neighborhood a few times, so I don’t have to wait for them to visit the lot thankfully. But I wonder if adopting the wild horses would count towards “Adopt 6 Strays”, since they are called wild instead of strays? I don’t think I’ll be spending much more time on this Lifetime Wish.

Friendly Unicorn
Unicorns can be more friendly than wild horses.

Alchemy Challenge – Return any 2 of each Gem or Metal

Is it just me, or is this challenge worded strangely!! My Sim has skill level 10 in alchemy, and just got a challenge to Return any 2 of each gem or metal to the vault of antiquity. My first thought is I had to have 2 of every type of Gem, OR 2 of every type of Metal. But a forum said it just means 2 different (any) gems AND 2 different (any) metals. Well, this is correct. My sim has 2 different gems and 2 different metals and he’s able to deliver them now. Whew! Avoided a very hard quest. But I’m working on an Achievement to cut one of every type of Gem on the Gem Cutter machine, with another sim in the household. So, I’m in the process of collecting all the gems anyway. I have the collection helper Lifetime reward to help, but I hate the fact that it doesn’t allow you to select JUST gems. You have to select Rock and Gems, and waste time picking up things that you don’t want, especially Space Rocks!! But it just so happens that the Any 2 of Each Gem or Metal challenge game my Sim the power to see the locations of each gem or metal in map view, with a little icon and tooltip on each one to display EXACTLY what it is, i.e. Moonstone, blue topaz, Gold, silver, etc! So… I will not be turning in his two gems and metals until I take him exploring and find some rare Gems that I’m missing 🙂

EDIT: Wow, you don’t even need 2 DIFFERENT gems and 2 different metals. Just 2 of the same gem and 2 of the same metal will work!

UPDATE: The challenge of 2 gems and metals is not ‘activated’ when you travel abroad, so you aren’t able to see each metal and gem’s location. Major bummer!! I think there are some adventures that give you this ability, but I don’t want to spend the time to do adventures just to try to find it!

Ghost becomes human again by eating Ambrosia

I just found this out recently and thought I would share. In one challenge, you can bring a Sims’ remains to the science lab to try to resurrect them. They seem to always come back as a playable ghost. I was able to create a relationship with my ghost and even have ghost children. But I didn’t know how to bring them back alive or to their bodily, corporeal form. I saw on a forum that the Ambrosia dish will do the trick! Luckily that family already had a master chef who had high fishing skill, and a full garden. They had plenty of life fruit, and with a bit of patience she caught the deathfish. She made the ghost Ambrosia and it worked!

Badge Picture Thumbnails are Suitcases or Luggage!

Ok, What’s up with the badge thumbnails just being suitcases or luggage? Does it mean I’m not logged in, even though it seems like I am? I don’t see a list of recently completed badges either. The names and descriptions are still there. I’m just worried that my achievement isn’t going to register if it’s not communicating with EA at the time. I thought I just completed my 20th batch of cookies with Regina Evil who is Emperor of Evil!

I clicked on Privacy Settings to see if I could reset my log in. The settings appeared OK. I then clicked ‘Open Downloads Dashboard’ and it says “Please log in to the Sims 3 Store to access the Downloads Dashboard.” I clicked OK and nothing happened. I closed the dialogs and clicked Options->Open Downloads Dashboard and it loaded up fine. From the main Sim panel, I clicked ‘Shop Mode’ and a dialog titled ‘The Sims 3 Store’ opened. It took several seconds of loading, but loaded up fine. I went back to Live Mode so I could re-open the Player Profile and Wall (which is only available in Live Mode). I checked the Badges screen but they are still suitcases.

Well, the badge does say 20 batches of GREAT Cookies, and I’ve only made 5 that were great. We’ll see what happens after 20.