Expansion confusion

[ladybarefeet]

Ok so we are new to SIMS. We've played about 2 weeks (me and my son, 9, yes I have forbid him to woohoo and he's really not even interested in that... he just wants his pro sports legend status and to interact with dragons).

We have several expansions: Night Life, Supernatural, Fast cars (or something), High End Loft Stuff, Pets and Generations.

We have Late Night, Pets and Loft Stuff on disc, and the rest are downloaded from Origin.
When we installed our expansions and stuff packs we of course got an icon on our desktops. When we click the icon for, say, Loft Stuff, it tells us to insert the disc for Pets. Dumb huh? It makes me wonder if I am missing some content. I do see the Stuff collections so I am not TOO TOO worried about it but thought it was worth mentioning.

Also, since we installed Late Night, shouldn't we be able to see or visit Bridgeport, the new town? I don't see how I'd even get to that with my sims. Do I have to create another game and different Sims in order to see that town? Is there no way to drive to other cities?

My main Sims are in Sunset Valley, which is running out of lots, and when I do find a place to sit a lot sometimes there are no roads to get to it and no way to build a driveway out to the road, so the Sim is stuck not using her car. Isnt there a way to extend a driveway from the Edit Town mode? For now I am just not putting residences on those lots, only commercial things since the resident wouldn't be able to drive away. I fear that if I run out of ways to expand the city, the interest in the game will die out. Its not a very big playing area.

Those are my misc sims problems that just annoy my game play. I posted my other, more pressing, problem in another thread. I would like to purchase Dragon Valley for my son, but I am afraid I wont be able to access the content because we are such noobs that mom wont be able to figure out how to actually get him to the dragon town with his Sim that he's been promoting.

Maybe I just need a quick crash course on how this game works. I've read TONS from Carls guide so I am getting there... but its not all completely spelled out in every case.

[Ricalynn]

Welcome to the forum, ladybarefeet.

The way the game works is that it's a single game with addons.  So you only ever play the Sims 3 not just one expansion.    So if you have all of the expansions, you're playing with all of them.    The game will always ask for the expansion that is chronologically the last one released from EA so in your case it should be Supernatural. 

As for going to Bridgeport, yes you would have to start a new game in Bridgeport.  (You can have more than 4 saves by the way)  You can choose to move your current Sims there by saving them to the household library in Edit Town.  To do this, open Edit Town, click on your household and then choose the "Save Copy to the Library" button that looks like an arrow going into a folder.

Driveways are not mandatory for a Sim to get somewhere.  They don't mind running. 

As for worrying about playing the game, try new families, try new traits, try challenge games, try to get every Lifetime Wish in the game. 

Don't forget to check out Carl's Newbie Guides as well.  They will probably help a bunch with some questions.

[ladybarefeet]

I didnt know yet that he had newbie guides. I definitely need that!

I've got this problem right now that I think may cause me to have to reinstall the game and all its expansions which is going to take me hours (probably). My sim panels get mixed up. It will work fine the first 20 minutes or so of the game, then suddenly the panels arent changing when I change the sim, yet I can control the sim and ask it to interact and do things. The dialogue will be mixed to where when the SIM I am controlling will be talking to someone and it will say that the NPC sim thinks my main sim is OK as if it were my main sim standing there talking to them. Then if I go to the inventory, it wont by the proper sims inventory. It will be stuck on my second sims inventory. I dont know what is triggering it to behave this way but i have to restart the game when it does that, which is time consuming... Blarg!

I've had the game just over a week and so many troubles. I think perhaps because I didnt install the expansions in order its geeked... maybe.

[Pam]

Hi ladybarefeet and welcome.

I think you might be tackling too much at once by having so many expansions and stuff packs installed when you're first learning to play the game.  Most of us here started back in 2009 with just the Sims 3 base game and I remember having to learn so many things.  Then with each expansion, it was another steep learning curve.  With your game, you're talking about four expansions and two stuff packs.  That's just an incredibly large amount of information to learn for a beginning player.  On top of all of that, you'll have to purchase and download the Sims 3 Store world, Dragon Valley, if you want baby dragons in your game.

Your Sim cannot travel between towns without using some tricks in Edit Town, as Ricalynn explained.  They can't just "drive" there.  The only worlds your Sims can visit within your game are the three foreign locations in World Adventures and the town in University Life.  In those expansions, your Sim can travel to the other worlds and return home when the trip is finished. 

Electric Arts recommends that the expansions and stuff packs be installed in the order they were released, if possible, like when you do a re-install.  It wouldn't hurt for you to re-install your game just to get a good fresh start with a little more knowledge than you had when installing it the first time.  And, like I said, most of us started with just the base game, so we just put in the one disk and away we went!

Don't hesitate to ask questions.  I love when we get brand new players because it takes me back to those early days four years ago when I first discovered the amazing world of Sims 3.  We'll help as much as we can.

[Seabody]

Also, since we installed Late Night, shouldn't we be able to see or visit Bridgeport, the new town? I don't see how I'd even get to that with my sims. Do I have to create another game and different Sims in order to see that town? Is there no way to drive to other cities?

A note, this will be possible in about a week; Electronic Arts will be releasing a patch soon (a patch is a downloadable file from the Sims creators that allow you to update your game to the latest version, it fixes bugs, adds new features, and stuff like that) and this will introduce the ability to move to another town. But they will have moved, it's not a case of "Johnny went to Twinbrook for the weekend".

I've had the game just over a week and so many troubles. I think perhaps because I didnt install the expansions in order its geeked... maybe.

It's not because you didn't install them in order. It wouldn't be, that'd be extremely unfair to people who don't like Pets so didn't get Pets, or who prefer hermits so didn't get Showtime, or Late Night. EA recommends installing them in order, but it's not, strictly speaking, necessary.

[Pam]

A note, this will be possible in about a week; Electronic Arts will be releasing a patch soon (a patch is a downloadable file from the Sims creators that allow you to update your game to the latest version, it fixes bugs, adds new features, and stuff like that) and this will introduce the ability to move to another town. But they will have moved, it's not a case of "Johnny went to Twinbrook for the weekend".

Why haven't I heard this?  Ack!!  Do you have a link, Seabody?

[Ricalynn]

Why haven't I heard this?  Ack!!  Do you have a link, Seabody?

This is part of the Island Paradise patch we're getting this week Pam.  It's all over that thread.

Ladybarefeet - I think Pam is right.  We all learned one game at a time.   Though I do feel you may be experiencing a bug or glitch with the panel problems.    There are also some maintenance tips that need to be learned for playing the Sims.

One of them is how to clear out your caches.   There is a very specific set of files that should be cleared regularly as a first step for all troubleshooting.    These files are all located in the "The Sims 3" folder that is located under Documents > Electronic Arts.    They are: scriptCache.package, compositorCache.package, CASPartCache.package, simCompositorCache.package and all of the files except the ccmerged file in the DCBackup folder.