The Sims 3: Stuck with Low Moods; Miserable after Latest Patch Workaround

Oh wow I’m back.. Today we’ll discuss a bug where after installing 1.18/2.13/3.9/4.6/5.4/6.1 patch, your Sims have increasingly low moods into the red and are often miserable. If you’ve noticed the opposite occurring, continue reading..

The description of this bug does not apply to everyone since there are cases where players have gotten this bug through other ways. This bug workaround will work specifically for those who noticed their Sims mood dips after sleeping on particular beds.

 

Low Mood Bug Description

Players have discovered after installing the latest patch, their Sims mood has dropped into the red and will no longer rise into happy or elated status no matter what they do. This bug occurs regardless of whether your needs are filled, and if you have multiple positive moodlets. When Sims are affected by this bug they will be too miserable or depressed to garden, change their appearance, woohoo, and try for a baby.

This bug can occur with or without Custom Content and Mods either through official site or third party.

This bug may not always cause low moods, in fact, some particular beds cause your sim to be stuck with elated and high moods that gradually rise over a period of time.

Workarounds

After several days of testing and reading various responses we have come up with a workaround until EA patches the bug. This workaround works only for those who are affected by low moods after sleeping in a bed.

Due to a faulty calculation with the “Well Rested” moodlet, some beds will either permanently increase or decrease your mood until you reset your save.

• Workaround 1
  • Reloading a save file will temporarily fix the mood your Sim is having. You must save your game, load into the main menu and then load your game. This will place your sims mood back into it’s appropriate value.
• Workaround 2
  • Due to a faulty calculation, one sim must use the Luxorlove Sleepset or beds with +25 Well Rested Moodlet.
• Workaround 3
  • If you can’t afford the bed, one must awake a Sim before the Well Rested Moodlet appears. You can avoid this by waking your Sim up before the energy bar is completely green.
• Workaround 4
  • Install the Mood Hotfix Mod which will check and recalculate the correct mood throughout the day.

 

Researching the Moodlet Bug

Since this workaround works specifically for those affected through beds, we have compiled several cases and posts that match up with the symptoms players are having. If you are affected by this bug but not through beds, you should post your observations on how it occurs on The Sims 3 forums. Then we can add your problem and solutions to this post.

This bug was first mentioned on a gamefaqs thread where the well rested moodlet was incorrectly stacking negative or positive moods. The incorrect mood isn’t  caused by the bed itself, but by the “well rested moodlet” which can only occur if your Sim sleeps on a bed and the game decides that they had a good night’s sleep. Particularly it is noticed on the cheaper BRASS type beds which give a +10 value to the Well Rested Moodlet.

 

You can click some pictures for larger size

Since the Well Rested Moodlet gives +10, it will drop the mood meter regardless of positive  moodlets.

As you can see, even though most of the needs are full and this sim has 2 positive moodlets, he is still miserable. This can only be remedied temporarily by sleeping on certain beds or awakening a sim before well rested mood shows up. But one must load the save file first so the mood is accurately calculated.

This value doesn’t happen on all beds however..

• Well Rested Moodlet Bug
  • Cheap and Mediocre beds with +10 ~ +20 create negative moods
  • Upper Mediocre beds with +25 have correct moods.
  • Expensive beds with +30 and up create positive moods.
  • If  two Sims sleep on an unaffected bed, one Sim’s mood will still drop.

There has been a reported case where two sims who slept on expensive beds at the same time had one of their moods permanently drop while the other sim’s mood permanently increase.

Please note simply, “buying a better bed,” does not avoid this issue. The most expensive bed can cause a permanent green mood making the game too easy. You will need to buy a bed with +25 Well Rested Moodlet and have only ONE Sim sleep on it.

Using the LuxorLove Sleepset keeps the correct mood value in tact.

 

 

The Following quotes match the description and issues described in this post..

Using cheats to drop negatives hiked the mood up a little, but many times the moodlet would reappear and had to be removed again. Taking off the “well-rested” moodlet caused an immediate sharp drop, same thing happens if you let that moodlet expire on it’s own.  [dhouse2]

You can experience this for yourself through cheating. Just by sleeping and cancelling the well rested moodlet on a bed that’s affected with this issue causes a permanent sharp drop to your sims mood.

I would wake my sim up before getting a completed night of sleep(sometimes just before it would complete). This kept me from getting the slept like the dead moodlet(sim is a vampire so not well rested). [Becket1]

Same process, avoiding well rested moodlets avoided the bug.

I quit out of my game (keeping the expensive Medieval bed) and restarted with the same Sim who was having the misery problem. Since then I have played over 5 Sim days and I am not getting the mood problems (yet). Everything is staying in the high green, even with no energy, low fun & social bars, dirty surroundings, etc. I even had a house fire at one point and still stayed well within the happy range. [dhouse2]

Coincides with expensive beds giving permanent positive moods.

The way the “well rested” buff is applied with the current patch seems to be the problem: a default value of +25 (from the buff definition) is subtracted from the mood and the actual value given by the bed is added. This logic would be correct if the default buff was in effect at the time, but I guess it isn’t. For a cheap +10 bed, this results in an accumulating loss of 15 mood each sim day. It also works the other way around: any bed or similar giving a stronger buff over +25 will produce an accumulating daily gain. [gatomontes]

A great description of this very bug.

 

Permanent Positive Moods Before the Patch

This bug has existed in previous patches but in reverse. Sleeping and getting the Well Rested Moodlet caused a Sim to gain a permanent increase in moods making the game too easy.

 

Amazon Users disgruntled with Spore SecuROM DRM

The Amazon Controversy

Something strangely interesting occurred over the release of Spore. Spore, the critically acclaimed creature creation game, has a strong list of supporters and gained high reviews on major gaming sites. Yet still, the biggest issue it has is its SecuROM DRM. This has resulted in the game amassing a low review score among its players and critics. This appears to be a protest campaign against SecuRom DRM, from players who have played the game and majority of others who haven’t.

DRM Concerns

The majority of complaints on Amazon’s site deals with the limited amount of activations your allowed to use in order to play the game. An activation attempt can be used if you completely reinstall your operating system or upgrade a certain amount of hardware inside your computer.

Once you have used up your 3 activations, you will need to call or email EA’s tech support and prove to them that you have purchased the game. Otherwise your only other choice is to purchase another copy.

Three is the loneliest number…

Some users have also installed Spore on multiple PCs, effectively using up 1 activation attempt for each PC. Amazingly within days of the game’s release, one consumer has already used up all 3 activation attempts. There are other complaints as users also seem to be concerned over the longevity that these activation servers will be up. What would happen 10 years later when those servers go down? Will players be locked out of playing the game?

Its unknown how EA will react to this. Its likely they will not do anything at all and will continue to use SecuRom in the future.

Even amidst this whole fiasco, one reviewer claims Gamespot deleted his review of Spore because it made  mention of DRM.

Catching Up With Cities XL

CitiesXL is expected to bring some new life to city simulation games. The game isn’t expected to release until 2009. In the meantime, the team at Monte Cristo has given an inside look at the game development process. There’s been a few new announcements since the game’s name has been changed from Cities Unlimited.

The MMO Aspect

Cities XL introduces an online component called “Planet Offer”. Players will be able to interconnect with other cities and influence various aspects between them. Mayors can share economic resources by trading with others.  Citizens can travel back and forth between other cities and experience venues and other major events. Players will also be able to walk through different cities and experience the game through a person’s eyes.

This online component has brought up a new issue we’ve never seen before in city building games, an online fee. The details of the pricing plan has not been decided yet, and many fans have decided $10 a month would be good, or perhaps a one time fee might be a more practical solution.

Zoning And Transportation

In regards to zoning, Monte Cristo built a mass placement tool that automatically sets each zone around the roads. Since there is no grid format for zone placement,  the zones would be automatically configure to fit within its confines.  A blog posting on CitiesXL site shows a rough concept on what the zoning tool may look like. Zone placement was certainly faster than Simcity4, but it felt that we did not have total control over where roads are going. I do stress that this zoning tool was only a concept, and I’m sure they will make it more intuitive once the game officially releases.

As for transportation, only roads were shown so far. The only features they did show off were multiple types of roads with 2 lanes or 4 lanes. Roads can be curved and the zones will attach itself to it. In the screenshot above you can see that diagonal roads have zones in front of them.  They do plan to showcase more methods of transportation before the end of this year.

Cities XL is expected to be released in 2009. It will be for the MAC and PC, and will have an unannounced online fee for the online component.

[via citiesxl.com]

Can The Sims 3 Help EA Get its Groove Back?

Old Article Below
Click For Newer Details for The Sims 3

Electronic Arts has been known for its struggle on garnering trust to its gamers. Economically EA’s potential for profit is huge with their Sports line, Maxis, Boxing, Action, and Mobile gaming department. They continuously flaunt their in-game advertisements and its economic success.

Still this all takes a toll on a consumers by the recent drop in stock shares and quarterly earnings reports. The Sims 3 has many potential spots to solidify game play and do well with gamers. But we worry if EA’s marketing strategy will get the best of it.

A New Gaming Approach

The Sims 3 has an ambitious goal ahead of it. One of the major changes is that it now focuses on ONE household. Your person is placed into a world where everyone’s lives evolves with or without you. It sort of follows the lines of a MMORPG. Everyone existing in the game has their own schedule, love life, and personality. This doesn’t seem to worry fans too much since this concept was used during the Life Stories product line.

The Art Style

The most critical component for potential consumers at this stage is the graphics. The graphics look marginally better than they appeared in The Sims 2. A more realistic approach was expected, unfortunately the only areas so far that seems to be visually improved are the outdoors.

 

This screenshot depicts of a more detailed and realistic look of how a neighborhood is like. Now that the world is seamless, the gameplay allows you to leave your house and walk to another in real time. You will be able to move around the world with as much freedom as the console games. Hopefully as you move around, there should not be anymore loading splash screens that break up the action, but I do expect a loading screen before you enter another building.

Interior design still has that barren Sims 1-like look, every object is placed on a grid. The only new feature with object placement is diagonal rotation. This is not enough to make this game stand out from its predecessor. [Editor's Note] They have now revealed 360 degree rotation. This will now place the game way above Sims 2. Path finding need’s to be able to adapt to these rotations though.

This is the only screenshot so far has the most radiant lighting effect. The sun shines through the windows and the couch gives off its glossy glow, if only every screenshot presented this rise in quality…

User Feedback

Here are some various user comments from different message boards:

What I was most looking forward to in Sims 3 was a major overhaul in the department–a more realistic looking game–after all, it is a life simulation, but apparently that’s not going to happen. This looks like more of same to me, with incremental improvements.

Actually I looked at some of the graphics and they are dramatically improved hardware wise. The problem is that everything is unquestionably UGLY

Lindsay Pearson Interview Response:

However the screenshots give a somewhat distorted image, because when you see the Sims 3 live at work, you immediately notice the high detail in the world and its characters.

We shall see how this will turn out, there isn’t much uproar for this game as Simcity Societies. So far EA, your on a positive note here.

The Sims 3 will be released in US on June 2nd, 2009

The Sims 3 will be released in UK on June 5th, 2009

The Sims 3 will be released in AU on June 4th, 2009

Learn More About the Sims 3