profbutters | Body Shop FYI

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Body Shop FYI

I only noticed this recently, and I'm not sure what caused it, but it's something you may want to know about.

I've recently tried to install some Sims I've had before and gotten an error message: "This content requires Expansion Pack data that is not installed." I know in these cases that the Sim has no content from that Expansion Pack and has only been changed slightly--aged up, or the CC eyes have been changed. Either AL or M & G "updated" the Body Shop engine. So even Sims with NO content from that pack registers as "created with AL or M & G" and can't be installed by anyone who does not have that pack. I understand there was a similar problem with Pets. This is the sort of thing that annoys me with EA. I don't think it's right to create a situation where you can't add CC if you haven't installed a pack that isn't available and will never become available to you.

Di kindly remade Stanley by using Any Game Starter so she could use a pre-AL Body Shop. I know that's probably not an option for most people and I can understand if it's not something people want to do. I wouldn't have a clue myself how to make a Sim with a version of Body Shop prior to the one I have, or even if I could using a Mac.

Just thought y'all might like to know. I've considered installing Windows and arr'ing the whole flippin' pile of stuff, but I'm not very awesome about Windows and I'm not sure if I would have to uninstall my Mac versions. I'm not doing anything odd until my Legacy is done. But that's EA for ya: driving mild mannered professors to a life of crime.

PB

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Ugh, bummer. I've had problems like that in the past too. Stupid EA! Stupid stupid EA! I smite them!

Since you've got more EPs installed than I do, all of my guys should work OK for you, but if they don't, just drop me a line.

All your guys are fine. I've only got Cass and SJ right now. Actually, only SJ. Cass will be in later, when I make the rest of his family. Then I'm going to whap him up to adult and get him fixed up with Gilbert and "upgrade" him with the Lot Debugger, because frankly I do not think he will mourn not having gone to college. I'll probably do the same with Algernon and fix him up with an adult version of Meadow.

Cypress will be stuck living with Dora Ottomas in archived Pleasantview, but some other Vetinaris might wander in later. Perhaps Larch. It would be nice to have Larch instead of Cypress.

I have this problem frequently. I've had to ask people who don't use AGS and who have uploaded their Sims places to please reupload to the Exchange so I can use a Sim I really like, and it sucks. EA is crazy.

Y'know, if you've got Windows Bootcamp, or whatever it is to run on a Mac, I'd say go for it after you've finished your legacy. Finish up the legacy on the mac, then go crazy and ARR the expansions you don't have for windows and have some fun. I'm sure the game play isn't any different between mac and pc, so once you're in the game it shouldn't really matter all that much.

I'd have to get Windows first, though I think Bootcamp just comes with Leopard. I might ask Marhis about how to do it, but just getting the households set up from my old legacy is taking a long time! And that would have taken even longer if. . .

Never mind. Shutting up now :)

Thanks for letting us know. I hope you figure something out, after your legacy.

Lauri

I think the ELE would welcome The Mild Mannered Professor.

Damn, now I have "Bad Horse" stuck in my head.

Is this on sims you've had in your game already, and now they just aren't installing? I didn't even think about that when I put my guys up for download. I thought that by just putting them in regular Base Game clothing would do the trick. Then again, only one of my guys was downloaded two times, so hopefully it won't be an issue.

I hope you can figure something out. Rebuilding is a pain enough without adding extra stupid EA problems to it.

Pretty much. I tried installing Stanley Legacy and Ian Legacina. NOTHING was changed on either of them except for the eyes (Stanley) and Ian (age.) Luckily, Di fixed things up with AGS and I found out what the glitch was that kept me from aging Ian up myself, so both problems were solved. I always keep the old Sim Packs on Sims I've installed, so if it worked the first time, it usually does again.

I admit it, I downloaded and tried to install Zane. Nope. Same thing: "EP not installed." Too bad, because I thought maybe since Cassidy Vetinari was adopted and had a nice childhood, that maybe he and Gilbert Jacquet might like to adopt Zane. Never mind. I have to focus on just getting the neighborhood up and running.

That was you? Wow, awesome!

http://thesims2.ea.com/exchange/sim_detail.php?asset_id=1559053

If you want him still. Zane will love Cassbert :)

For lo, Zane has been installed.

I'll do what I did last time: make him as a grownup, move him in with the Calientes, age him down to child, sit back, and watch as the Social Worker swoops in and does her work.

I don't think of Cass and Gil as being exactly the domestic type, but I think they're also pushovers. I think they're likely to ruin Zane by feeding him much too much cake.

Cake! Zane's never had cake before!

Also, I chased down Zane's hair, as it wasn't showing up for some reason. I am pretty sure it is from MTS2, DJ Murs' fixed OFB curly hair for all ages. In fact, I am sure, because once I installed it, Zane's hair magically grew back, and I wanted that hair anyhow. But at least you know it isn't paysite hair!

I'm one of those Mac users who gave up and installed the whole crap on a bootcamp partition. I swear, I play both: TS2 up to BV on the mac side and the "complete" TS2 on Windows. I barely tolerate that OS, and only because I need it for TS2, SimPE, etc.
Both situations have pros and cons. The look of the game is better on the Windows side (Aspyr didn't bother to deal enough with DirectX and OpenGL), antialiasing and bumpmaps are great; on the other hand, I miss the way MacOS X deals with programs. I feel your pain :/.

I was thinking that you've done that. I didn't know you could have both on a bootcamp partition. I'm still thinking about it and how to do it, but if you don't mind I may ask your advice later. I particularly regret not having AL. It does look like fun. And I would like to fool around with Sim PE. I hate having to ask people to do things for me, like extracting Sims, though so many people have been so nice about it.

We'll see what happens. Right now all the time I've got is going into rebuilding my neighborhood. Once it's up and running, maybe once I've gotten further into Gen 9, I'll be able to think about it.

If you do arr it onto bootcamp, I'd like to hear about how it works out - since it's definitely something I would consider in the future. Probably not on this computer, since I really don't want to ruin anything by trying to install bootcamp, let alone arr'ed software, but maybe when I get a new one (though that's not likely to happen for another year).

This happened to me with a sim I wanted yesterday, I still got her cause I used clean-installer. I went in my game and she was there, exactly like the picture, your sims aren't lost forever ;)

Macs don't have Clean Installer.

Oh sorry, I didn't know you played on a mac... perhaps there is an equivalent, have you tried googling for something like it?

No, there is no equivalent at all. Much of the previous discussion does not make sense unless you know that I play on a Mac. Because I play on a Mac, I do not have the later expansion packs, nor am I likely to, because they may not ever release the later EPs for Mac.

If there were something like Clean Installer, I, Rosefyre, or Marina would probably know about it.

People have been telling me that the same thing was happening with all of my sims, which I'd done in M&G so I agree that it's definitly made things go squiffy. Everything was fine when I used an earlier BS version, but still blaaah.

Not much to add really, just grrr at EA in general. Grr.

I suspected M & G myself, even though a few people said it was AL. I only started having trouble very recently. M & G looks lovely, but it's my impression that it was very buggy.

I uninstalled M&G because that was what made me have to rebuild my game. So, I think it's AL that did it.

Then again, maybe it's both.

I have another question.

If someone were to just take the actual file and put it into a zip, would that work? You know, just get rid of the little installer thing and give someone the "N001_User00990" character file for them to put into their downloads folder?

Or is it different for Mac users? I would like to know in the event that other people will eventually want my guys, but they don't have AL.

I don't know, but I think Jenn (Ndainye) would. She extracted my Sims into .package files and then zipped everything up, which I unzipped and put directly into my Saved Sims folder. It worked a treat, but that's really a Sim PE question, and of course I don't use Sim PE.

Actually, that answers my question. You are able to plop the actual character file into your downloads folder, totally bypassing the entire installer thing.

Awesome. Good to know :)

When I extract sims I rarely bodyshop them, I just pull them out using SimPE. My game and SimPE configuration includes all expansions including M&G. However since I was pulling the sims from your neighborhood files that don't include later expansions it might have made a difference in the way that they were coded. I might pop a file with one of my born in game sims from my M&G installed game and ask you to see if you can utilize them just to check.

I personally have problems using Any Game Starter and the Legacy Bodyshop. It's most likely my Vista installation but several attempts at getting it to work on this system with anything other than a full game has made me throw my hands up. And then Full game (dummy hood) installations tend to crash when attempting to enter a house. So I can't really create any sims or houses at this time, that don't include full installation.

I have just the Base Game installed on my husband's computer. What I ended up doing was opening all my packaged (and apparently AL) sim files, extracting them, sending them over to his computer, and opening Body Shop to see if they would work.

They did. Granted, three of my sims were nekkid and bald (those three are Romance Sims, so I don't think they minded), but that might have something to with the hair and clothes being from an expansion pack later than the base game. Meh, for the most part it worked.

I also can't get AGS to work on my computer, so I'm glad that plopping the actual sim file works just as well.

And we all learned something today. See Prof, apparently you can't stop teaching even outside of class :)

I'm a weeny bit paranoid to try that out, but I'm betting that as long as it doesn't have any EP or SP content I don't have, it would probably be fine (plus I would know what the problem was and I could take it out.)

I don't blame people for not creating CC using AGS. I just wish it wasn't making it harder and harder for me to find CC I can use. It's not as though I stubbornly wasn't installing the later EPs and SPs and then wondering why I couldn't use anything. Believe me, if they were available in Mac format, I would get AL right away. (M & G, though--I dunno. So many people seem to be having trouble with it.)

Slightly late, but never mind.

I think that it was either AL or FT that changed BS, because I know that Doc had difficulty snagging Nummy Theo way back before I installed M&G but after I'd installed AL. Packaging sims to the exchange seems to be fine, but packaging them to a package on the desktop doesn't work for users without the later EPs.

Using a Seasons Legacy BS is definitely the way that I'm going to package all my sims in the future. I just need to remember to do it.

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Body Shop FYI

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