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.

Complete Badge – Win 6 Fights in a Row

Ok, usually I don’t like playing with Evil sims or any sim who likes to pick fights. But one of the Sims Badge Achievements is “Winning Streak” – Win 6 fights in a row. So I went to a local bar and started picking a fight with some strangers. First I had to do a few actions from the Mean menu, then the Fight menu appeared and she could start a Brawl. She’s an evil Sim and has level 7 athletic, so she got a good moodlet about winning. I did this 6 or 7 times and did not get the badge achievement yet. I wonder if I’m missing anything? Does the fight have to be in a certain lot?

Update: I did it! Don’t do the ‘Brawl’ interaction at dive bars. You’ll need to get your relationship low enough with the ‘victim’ Sim by declaring them a nemesis or other interactions under the Fight menu. Then you’ll get a ‘Fight!’ interaction. The fights don’t last as long as the brawls do, which is nice! It wasn’t hard to complete the achievement badge. Now I can stop playing my evil family and do some good achievements! There are a couple other evil achievements, but I’ll work on those later!

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?