A Fatal Error
has occurred and Westerville and GlenRio have been shut down.
The game’s internal engine may have been altered by a global hack, which caused irreversible damage to the exe files necessitating a complete, manual uninstall. Even the uninstall.exe’s had been corrupted.
I have been places in my pc that I never knew existed, scary places where if you make a mistake the whole thing is fried, trying to find every single EA-related file to delete. Finally, around 4 am, with the help of my tech savy and oh-so patient hubby, the final file was removed and the reinstalls began.
Initially I was angry, but in the end it was my own fault. All downloads come with a warning that they might cause game damage, but I ignored it.
Today, I’m more calm about the situation and with a completely download free game, I get to slowly find downloads that I like and most importantly, make sure that they work. If they don’t I don’t have to go through thousands of files trying to find it to delete it.
Over the past few months of blogging I have learned quite a few things:
- Limiting the number of families helps their stories move along more quickly.
- Integrate family’s story lines to get a better feel for the neighborhood and interactions rather than having each family isolated.
- While playing the game, take many, many pics even if I don’t know why at the time, it may come in handy later.
- When the download says “may cause damage” take it seriously!
With a clean slate, new sims are waiting for their stories to be told. I hear that a new crop of adventurous souls are already moving in on top of the ashes of GlenRio to try to create a sustainable utopia. As for the blog here, I’ll need a little bit to get things back to normal but I’m sure a new town will appear.
April 16th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
Oh, wow, Ann… I am so sorry! That SUCKS! I’ve never heard of anything doing that kind of damage though, wow. I’ve had a few crashes myself.
At least you’re looking at it in a good way. I’ll definitely read whatever you come up with next.
April 16th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
I’m so sorry to hear this happened!
While it is kind of nice to have a fresh slate, I know all too well that it’s not fun to lose all the Sims you were invested in.
April 16th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
OH no! I am very sorry!
Would you mind sharing which hack it was? I want to avoid it!
I am glad you are feeling better about it all. Now you can start fresh with what you’ve learned.
April 16th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
I’m sorry Ann! That sucks so hard! I agree with Jade though, what demon hack caused all of this damage? Whatever you put out I’ll definitely read! Best of luck!
April 16th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
Oh no! That’s really awful. At least now you can have a fresh start, although of course now we never really will find out what was up with those crazy roosters.
April 16th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
Thanks everyone
I’m feeling much better about the situation today. Losing GlenRio had me kinda bummed but chin up, clean slate and whatnot 
Plus I get to spend the downtime reading everyone else’s blogs!
The damage was insane! I’ve never seen anything like it.
Most certainly I would have named the hacked object if I were 99% positive that was what caused the devastation. I don’t want to disparage folks’ creations if I’m not sure and no problems were reported in the thread related to the download. The hacked object (a computer that allows banking, shopping, etc) has been out for years and was updated for BV just not Freetime, which is probably where the problem lay (stupid me) or it may have just been a coincidence and the game was going wonky anyway.
Ah, the roosters…They began to reappear in Westerville when development was threatening as a way to teach mankind a lesson. They were heralding an alien invasion that, instead of turning Westies into aliens, would have time traveled the entire town back to the early, pioneer days when Westerville was first founded. Of course any pregnancies would have to be taken by the social worker and edited out of the story but Francine Borgoine in a bonnet and apron churning butter?
April 16th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
Hahaha, that was an awesome storyline with the roosters.
As for the computer… I’ve had that in my game for awhile with no issues and I’m using FT… very strange. :\ Ah well, have you decided what you’re going to do next?
April 16th, 2008 at 10:42 pm
Oh my…I am so sad about the loss of this wonderful town! But, I look forward to the next project and all the new stories you’re going to share with us!
April 16th, 2008 at 11:23 pm
Thanks
A friend has the computer and she’s not having problems either, so I wasn’t sure (still not sure) what caused the whole mess. In his efforts to help early on, hubby removed 4 files related to the computer with “global” in the title and we assumed they were the culprits. (Never Ass-u-me lol ) It was likely just a coincidence of timing that the game went crazy after I downloaded the object.
No idea yet on the W-ville replacement just yet but I did spend the day creating new residents and moving them in to GlenRio! I even remembered to remove old/create new townies this time around, so no Melissa Fancey and GlenRio is reborn this Friday
April 17th, 2008 at 6:04 am
Thats Terrible :(.
ill be sad to see the residents of Glenrio+ westerville go!!!/
I hope this log carrys on and i want to let you know i will read anything you post. I love your writig style!”"
Muchlove
yasmin
April 17th, 2008 at 10:31 am
Hi I just found your website through Mao I believe. I just caught up on the story and I am sad to see it end. Can’t wait for the new story though.
April 17th, 2008 at 11:33 am
Thanks guys! and Welcome Detris
I’ve devised a new story line for here and the GlenRio residents are already moved in (the psychic above is a bit late on that one 
)
April 17th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Yeah, I have had that computer and it’s various updates for years now. No problems yet. Veeerrrryyy interesting. Well, I am glad you are chin up and all that!
April 17th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
What a tragedy!
These games are so complicated that you never really know what goes wrong. I hope you get everything back and running real soon.
April 17th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
A tragedy, really? I’m not sure I’d go that far lol
I’m glad no one else has had any problems, it sounds like a really cool object to have installed. I’m not even sure that it was the cause of the great kaplooey for me, it just happened to happen around the same time.
April 20th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Oh no, that really is too bad! I always hate it when my game crashes and I have to try and find my precious custom content again. But then again, a fresh start could lead to good things. I hope you’ll continue your blog.