Some Sims 3 technical notes: creating a new playable household, edge scrolling, and more

1.    Over the weekend, I had some trouble adding a second playable family household to my neighborhood.  In order to add a new family, first you have to start playing your existing family.  Then click the ellipsis ("…") button and choose "Edit Town."  From there, click "Create Sims."

Once you have created and saved your new family, you will return to the Edit Town screen.  You can choose your new family from the family bin, and use the "Place Copy" button to drop them into a new house in your neighborhood.  The game will give you a warning that your first family's wishes will be deleted when you do this.

I will confess that this is the point at which I chickened out.  And I'm glad that I did!  In browsing some of the Sims 3 forums, it's not unusual for someone's first family to be deleted when they place a second playable family into their neighborhood.  This is obviously a bug, but it's one that I'm not willing to risk right now.  I have a friend who has placed several playable families into her neighborhood without any problems, so this bug obviously does not affect everyone.

If you want to play it safe, you can download a new neighborhood free from the official Sims store.  This neighborhood is called Riverview, and you can download and then install it using the Launcher.  On the main menu, click "+ New Game" then choose Riverview from the drop down menu.

Riverview has a few wonderful surprises.  Certain members of the Broke family from Sims 2 can be found there; beyond that, I will not say. 

2.    Last week I bemoaned the loss of the camera control that lets you move the camera by pushing your mouse against one of the four edges of your monitor.  This weekend I found that this is an option which is turned off by default.

You can turn on by clicking the ellipsis button ("…") choosing Options, then going to the Game Options tab.  Click to enable Edge Scrolling, and save.

3.     Much has been made of the fact that other Sims continue to age and experience life, even if you're not actively playing them.  For example the friend of mine who has several playable families in the same neighborhood played one family for a while.  When she switched back to her other family, she was surprised to discover that one of them had gotten herself a job promotion.

The game calls this "Story Progression," and it means that time doesn't stop when you yourself leave a lot.  You can turn off Story Progression, but I have found several forum posts which indicate that the ability to turn off Story Progression is broken right now.

4.    EA has released the first patch for Sims 3 on PC.  Unfortunately, Mac players will have to wait a little bit longer before their patch arrives.  

When EA publishes a patch, the Game Launcher is set to download and install the patch automatically.  You can double check this by opening the Game Launcher and clicking the Game Updates button.  It will tell you if your game is up to date, and you can take the box to receive automatic updates.