SimPort Touring Process

Looks like my level 10 magician, David Copperfield, successfully went on tour to a friend’s game. One of my Sim friends sent out a request to host a level 10 magician at a Coffeehouse. I decided to give it a try since David meets the criteria. So first I clicked on the ‘View Simport’ button in the friend’s request announcement at the top corner of the screen. The SimPort window appeared. I clicked on ‘Accept’ within the request message, and a dialog appeared to let me choose which Sim should go. I think only David was available, so I clicked on ‘Next’. Then it had a few confirmation dialogs to make sure I really wanted him to go, and whether to save my game. I clicked yes. So for about a minute and a half the game went into the loading status with the message ‘Booking Tour’. I could still hear sound effects in the background, like the game play was still moving forward with the other family member. But there was nothing I could do to interact with her. Then for another 2 minutes or so, the game was in the ‘Saving’ state with the loading icon. Finally the game play resumed and I think the other family member DID continue to go about her business without me! Her energy was dangerously low. David ran out to his limo and drove out of town, with the status of ‘Going on Tour’ or something similar. When he was out of the town, his Sim icon went dim and the tooltip says he’ll return around Tues. at 12:30 AM. He left around Monday at 2:00 pm. It looks like you still can go to Edit Town or Save your Game when your Sim is on tour.

Already there’s a new message that the Tour Stop is complete, and both me and the requesting friend have Simoleans, SimPort Stamps, Lifetime Happiness rewards.

Naughty Reputation and Failed Greet Interaction

Another ‘bug’ that seems to be happening is that when I go to greet a Sim in the neighborhood at a community lot (also happened at a house party), the target sim just freezes and my Sim (David) never greets him. The stranger just stands there as if waiting for something, and David just stands there waiting for the other to ‘accept’ the greet! Then, I cancel the interaction, and sometimes the stranger is still frozen! No interactions can be made, even ‘Call Over’. I noticed it the first time on the Coffee shop proprietor, so I used the ResetSim ‘cheat’ to reset her. I think it just made another Sim become proprietor, and I can’t remember if that solved the issue.

Now I’m starting to notice that whenever Sims in the neighborhood see David, they get a frowny-face memory bubble above their heads. And I realized that he has a Naughty Reputation (had 2 loves at once), so that would explain that. But do they start out with a low relationship status because of that? Are they supposed to ignore or resist my Sim’s interactions? What all does the naughty reputation do, and is it causing the failed greet interaction bug? How do I remove the Naughty Interaction? The 2nd woman he loved died a long time ago, and I saw the option to ‘Confess to Cheating’ with the other woman, but didn’t want to try that and jeopardize the relationship. He never did marry her, but they are going steady. I’ll try the confession and marriage to see if that helps his reputation.

Sim Click Pie Menu Not Appearing

I noticed there was an update to the Sims 3 today, great!! I’ve been noticing a few bugs here and there with Showtime, and I hope they get fixed. Also my game has been running very slow lately, either I have too many objects or Sims in my saved game, or my laptop is getting old! I’ve tried setting the graphic settings down, since it seems to be a rendering issue. But it doesn’t seem to speed it up very much, plus then I don’t get the nice detail and texture on Sims and objects! Anyway, now I am noticing that sometimes clicking on my Sim doesn’t bring up the pie menu. I click and wait a several seconds, and nothing happens. I think it is only a problem on community lots; works OK at his house. There should always be some options when clicking on a Sim, like making a cell phone call. He’s a magician Sim, so clicking on him is how I get him to perform for tips. I wonder if it has something to do with the community lot not being completely rendered when I try to pull up the menu. Anyone else having this problem?

Sims 3 Badges

The Sims is an excellent example of open-ended gameplay. There are tons of different aspects of the game that you can explore and play, and of course EA keeps adding more until it’s to the point where there’s not enough Sim hours in the day to do everything. Especially when you have to worry about your Sims’ basic needs as well! So lately I’ve been focusing my efforts on the Badges that EA added. They’ll keep adding more with new expansion packs, so I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get them all, but it’s fun to see your achievements and show them off on your Player Wall. It says you can even buy more badges at the Store! But I don’t think I’d buy something like that, unless it was free!

Here’s a great list of badges including those included with ShowTime. http://www.carls-sims-3-guide.com/achievements.php

Serve Perfect Lobster Thermidor 20 Times

I tried working towards earning one badge where a 5-star chef serves perfect Lobster Thermidor 20 times. I had a gardener Sim in the same household who grew perfect ingredients. At first I had the chef just make single servings of the dish 20 times, and that didn’t seem to work, then I started using the Serve option. When each dish was done, I hovered over it and verified it was Perfect quality. I thought it might be this fancy fridge that I got somehow that wasn’t in the Buy Menu, so I switched to one of the best fridges in the menu, but it never unlocked the badge for me. However, I was able to get the other badge where the Sim makes a bunch of other dishes at perfect quality.

Showtime SimPort Details – Unable to Save or Use Edit Town

I’ve been playing Sims 3 Showtime recently, trying to earn the many badges that are related to Showtime features. Two badges are related to the new SimPort feature, a new social feature that allows your Sim to visit your friends’ games (go on Tour), and your friends’ Sims to visit your game to perform on stage. First you’ll need to invite/request friends using the friend search in the game. Then you can send requests out to your friends to Host their Sim, or Send your Sim on Tour. One of your friends will need to accept within 1 (human) day. Then I’m not quite sure what the next step is, I think you’ll need to accept one more time. I sent a Host request, got a message that someone accepted, then I had to click Accept again. Then the game gave me a message that I won’t be able to Save the game or go to Edit Mode while the town is Hosting a Sim! I thought that would be OK because it shouldn’t take too long for this Show to happen and be over with! But nothing happened after that, and after several hours I wanted to save my game, and told it to cancel the SimPort. But it didn’t seem to cancel, and Edit Town was still disabled. I finally did Save and Quit, so I’ll see what happens when I go back to the game today.

Once you accept the SimPort, I think you should be able to go to Map View to see what venue and time the Show will take place. Hopefully that will let you know when it will be over!

For more information on the SimPort feature, I found a good video here: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xp0tc0_the-sims-3-showtime-simport-guide-grk_videogames
Another resource is an article here: http://forums.electronicarts.co.uk/sims-3/1470718-send-receive-sims-sims-3-showtime-guide-using-simport.html

Requirements: In order for Sims to be eligible to go on tour, they will need to have a household of at least two members and be a level two performer. Only one Sim can be on tour at a time. Once your Sim goes on tour, they could be away for up to 12 Sim hours