Mermaidic Kelp Not Working, Bad Quality

I’ve been trying to become a mermaid with one of the pre-made Sim families in Isla Paradiso, Rajan Patel. I want him to fall in love with a mermaid, become one, and have a mermaid baby to complete the Sims Badge! He became friends with a male mermaid and got several pieces of mermaidic kelp. But when Rajan ate it, he would get nauseous for 2 hours, throw up, and that was it. No transformation. I even waited a day or so to see if it happened later. But nothing. Then I decided to pull it out of the inventory and compare it to the normal kelp you can buy at the store.

Here’s a screenshot – the “Mermaidic Kelp” received by the mermaid is blackish and has some bad quality indications, and some normal kelp is nice green.

Bad Mermaidic Kelp
Bad Mermaidic Kelp

 

So my theory is the mermaid Townie I found has some bad kelp that he gave us! I even created a brand new Sim and merged her into the family to try it, but it didn’t work for her either. Then I put some in her inventory and moved her to another lot via Edit Town. When she ate one on the other lot, it worked! She transforms almost right away. Also when she pulled it out to eat it, it was glowing! That must mean it’s a good one. Then I moved her back into the original family. The kelp is now glowing!

Good Kelp-Glowing
Good Kelp-Glowing

 

EDIT: I found on a Sims forum that the evil mermaids may give you bad kelp. The one I became friends with did seem kind of strange looking. His name was Salty.

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.

Architecture Profession Tips

I bought the Sims 3 Ambitions a week or so ago, and have been testing out some of the new features and professions. This will be the first in a series of posts about the new expansion pack! For the first I’d like to give some advice and information about the Architecture Design profession.

First, you’ll need the Drafting table and the stool in order to ‘Research Architecture Design’ and practice painting. Use the phone to sign up for the profession just like any job. If you want to create a Sim specifically for this profession, I would suggest picking traits such as:

  • Handy
  • Artist
  • Loves the Outdoors (I thought this may come in handy if he needs to visit the outside of people’s houses)
  • Perfectionist

Are there any others you suggest? You can also give him the Lifetime Want of ‘Home Design Hotshot” and he’ll keep getting wishes regarding furthering his career.

How Do Architecture Jobs Work

Your Sim will have specific hours (8a-6p M-F) in which he can pick from several renovation requests marked on the map. You can read a description of what the client wants. Then the game will ask you if you’d like to begin now, or come back to it later. Choosing Begin now will take you to the client’s home and enter Build/Buy mode. You will be given a checklist of items to buy and place in the home, and a budget. I find this pretty neat; you get to use the client’s money, and they give you a pretty large budget. You get to pick styles for the furniture and decor of the room. You can place the new objects anywhere in the home, and delete or modify any furniture, walls, flooring, or landscape. So you can go above and beyond what the client demands.

Completion, Portfolio, Reviews

When you’re satisfied with your work and have completed the checklist items, you can submit the renovation for review. Your sim will call the client (who had vacated the lot) and they will come to review your work. They’ll give you a review and comments, your fee and perhaps a bonus. The game will ask you if you’d like to take a picture for your portfolio. The reviews tend to get better as your profession level increases. But I just received a negative review for a renovation I had to come back to. She said it was ‘cluttered’ and she couldn’t reach the new items (it was a large house and the renovation was for a larger pool area). I’m not sure why she couldn’t reach the area, I just had some foot lights and flowers around, but a clear path and steps in the pool.

Bugs

When you submit the renovation for approval, some buggy gameplay may occur. First, you will be taken out of build/buy mode which means the walls will suddenly become opaque. Then when the client enters the house again to review, your Sim should also be able to enter, and the camera view should be able to ‘enter’ and view the house. But I experienced a bug where the walls remained opaque, even though I could see inside the house if I zoomed in the camera so it ‘entered’ the house. It was very annoying since I tried to take a photo for my portfolio. I didn’t try leaving the lot and re-visiting since I wasn’t sure if the photo would still work for the portfolio.

Another bug I encountered was when the client never told me her ‘review’. (It was for the pool renovation mentioned above). All I saw was the completed checklist. There were no extra interactions on the client to make her review the renovation again. I later figured out that if you zoom out to Map view, you should be able to see the map icon again, and on it will be an option to submit the renovation for review. But when she did renovate it she gave me a negative review! I’m not sure if it had something to do with coming back later.

Tips

In the negative review the client said “You didn’t use all the budget! Do you think I want it to look cheap?” Although in another review it said “I’m glad you saved me so much money!” So I’m not sure if you should use all the budget or not. I would suggest spending it all if you have a wealthy client. To avoid the “cluttered” review, maybe avoid adding too many lights or flowers.

Let me know if you have any other tips or comments!

Trouble With Egypt Library Under the Sands – no one answers door

I think there’s a problem with the Library Under the Sands adventure or quest in Egypt. I completed it for one sim, but then a different sim got the same quest, and no one answers the door at the house with the library in it. I can “Look in Window” and see someone in there, but not the person I’m supposed to talk to. I now have to talk to the same person to deliver a relic, and his icon is above the house, but he doesn’t answer the door. I found an article here that explains a possible work-around: GameFAQs – Library Under the Sands – Broken. It says that the owner of the house is a merchant and is constantly away from the house. It suggests going into Edit mode to add another Sim to the house who will be able to answer the door for you. I’m not sure if this will work, because I see someone in the house who isn’t answering the door. My Sim knocks on the door and an icon of the correct contact appears in the queue, as if he’s going to greet my Sim. But then the queue icon disappears, and my Sim is left standing on the porch waiting. I’ll try out the work-around to see if that helps. Otherwise you have to right-click on the quest to cancel it.

Interact or Talk with Sitting Sims

There are not many interactions available between a standing sim and a sitting sim. One I’ve seen is the ‘Call Over’ if the sims are far away from each other. But I would think all of the interactions would be available, and the sitting sim would just stand up before performing the interaction. If you’re visiting a Sim and they sit down, you won’t be able to talk to them! You’ll have to sit down as well and see what options are available then. For example, if you both sit down in front of the TV there should be several things to talk about. But I think a standing sim should still be able to talk to a sitting sim. It seems like a bug to me.

Story Progression Not Disabled Bug

If you’re wondering why unchecking the ‘Story Progression’ option doesn’t seem to work in disabling the aging and progression of other families in your neighborhood, you’re not going crazy. This is a bug and unfortunately doesn’t appear to be fixed in the version 1.3 update that came out around July 27th. The work-around is to create a shortcut to the program and add a -disablestoryprogression tag to the target. I have yet to test this out. And you’ll need to use this shortcut instead of the Sims 3 launcher, which means we may not know when an update is available unless we open the launcher every now and then.  Specific instructions for the workaround can be found here: http://www.riftblog.com/sims-3-workaround-story-progression-bug I’m curious, do you prefer it disabled or enabled?