Don't save on vacations

[Whoops]

After about 10 hours of game time I decided "hey, I have an opp. to go to egypt, I've wanted to go there, let's go!" Made the call, and my game loaded egypt without my sim hopping in a taxi. Next thing I know, I'm in egypt without a sim, thinking I may just have to wait for them to appear, I wait about a day, then write it off as a bug and figure if I save and reload it'll spawn my sim in. Wrong, it saves the game as me having no sim at all!

So if you load a vacation without your sim inside, do not save, as the game will just eat your entire file. (and to think I wasted $90 on this ♥♥♥♥...)

[uecasm]

Do you have a "day 1/3 bar" at the bottom? Maybe if you wait a few more days it'll return you to the normal neighbourhood even without a sim. (My sims have been on vacations and back without trouble, and I've even saved and reloaded while on vacation. Never had a no-sim vacation though.)

[Zorlond]

I just got hit by this bug (sims not arriving at the vacation). Fortunately, I saved just before attempting to go on the trip, and didn't save after my sims failed to arrive. My sim family (father, mother, daughter) had gone to Egypt before, had some adventures, and were now ready for a second trip to Egypt for more.

After a ton of trial and error, I found that one of my sims (the father) was causing the problem. If he was included in the trip at all, the family would not arrive. More trial and error, I have eliminated all but these variables:

-He initiated the origional trip.
-He's male (duh).
-He was under the effect of a rumor before returning home from the previous trip.
-His mood was quite poor before returning home from the previous trip.
-For some reason, when he got home, he was carrying the family's tent, even though the mother had it last.

Dunno which of these might possibly be relevant, but including all I can think of for completeness. What variables I have eliminated:

-Under the effect of Mummy's Curse or not
-Employed as a lvl 10 Businessman or unemployed
-Access to the limosine or just the taxi
-Wearing the job uniform or not
-Free will off or on full
-Deciding to go to China instead
-Having an vacation-related opportunity (he was partway through Egypt's initial series)
-Inventory empty or containing items

Note that I did save the game during the previous trip, but keep in mind that the whole family was there on that trip, and only the father is bugged. But if you find yourself with no sims on your vacation, most definitely Do Not Save the game. Get out to the Main Menu and find out which sim of yours is bugged.

[Zorlond]

Cross 'initiated the trip' off the list of suspects. The daughter has been on two trips to Egypt alone now, and she initiated both of them, no problems.

[Ailure]

Did you try open the bugged savefile, let couple of days pass to have the vacation end, and see what happens when you get back home?

[XXXMasonXXX]

I have been able to save my progress while I'm on vacation. It's worked for me in Egypt, France, and China. Never had an issue. I'm aware of the bug but it hasn't happened to me.

[Infiltrator22]

After about 10 hours of game time I decided "hey, I have an opp. to go to egypt, I've wanted to go there, let's go!" Made the call, and my game loaded egypt without my sim hopping in a taxi. Next thing I know, I'm in egypt without a sim, thinking I may just have to wait for them to appear, I wait about a day, then write it off as a bug and figure if I save and reload it'll spawn my sim in. Wrong, it saves the game as me having no sim at all!

So if you load a vacation without your sim inside, do not save, as the game will just eat your entire file. (and to think I wasted $90 on this ♥♥♥♥...)

lol, that's why you have "save as...", so you can save it on another file, if you don't sure about something in the game, and well, bug happens, in every game.

[Zorlac]

I've never seen this bug myself, and I've had the world adventures since launch.

Common sense would tell you not to save when you notice a game breaking bug though.

[Zorlond]

Did you try open the bugged savefile, let couple of days pass to have the vacation end, and see what happens when you get back home?

I did try this. No sims of mine arrived, the local Explorer sims all stood in the base camp doing absolutely nothing, not even passing out or complaining of needs, the natives dropped by every now and then but also just stood there for some hours before leaving. Three days passed, and I was not sent back to the sims' home. Without the sims attending the trip, it appears most of the processes, including the day timer, don't trigger.

[spyrochaete]

I love this game but the saves are kind of like playing russian roulette. I save almost every day so if anything gets screwed up I only lose one day of progress. Even if your savegame gets corrupted there's a backup file you can restore.

Save early, save often!

[Asai]

I love this game but the saves are kind of like playing russian roulette. I save almost every day so if anything gets screwed up I only lose one day of progress. Even if your savegame gets corrupted there's a backup file you can restore.

Save early, save often!

Man that is the best advice i have seen on these boards, and it is not only limited to The Sims 3 i have had several other games where they were good games but buggy and would flake out if i coughed while playing. It does seem to suck the the more complex the game is the more details it includes into game play the more unstable it is, but you either deal with it or you are reduced to very simplistic linear games.

Something to add to the advice is to save the game as two seperate files alternating the saves between save A and save B, i really hate "chewing the same dirt" over again so at worst this way i loose 2 days of time. Just like you only loose one i do choose to go the extra step having had to restart many games again because of a save glitch. You will never remove any chance for a screw up but you can minimize the impact.

Asai