My Sim Won't Leave France

[ladynewbie]

So I sent my Sim on a 3 day vacation to France because I wanted her to learn Nectar Making.  My original goal was just just buy the necessary items and then head home.  I tried to send her home on the first and second days, but no luck.  I then figured I'd hang around France for the 3rd day and let the system just kick her back home at the end of the vacation.  It gave me all the appropriate warnings getting to the end of the vacation, but after it popped up with that blue dialog box saying how she should enjoy her vacation, talk about her adventures, blah blah blah, it never sent her back home.  So now she's stuck in France on day 4 of what was supposed to be a 3 day vacation.  

I tried to just exit the game and see if that would do it, but apparently I hit save and quit, b/c when I restarted the game, it starts back in France on day 4.  I also tried the Reset Sim cheat, and that didn't do anything either.  Any other suggestions?  I appreciate any ideas!    

[samoht04]

Have a look at this Thread. Have you tried reseting the sim? Or tried going back using the phone again?

[ladynewbie]

I tried resetting the Sim, and using the phone, several times for each one.  I got tired of dealing with it so, I decided to just delete the main game file and restore a backup.  Guess this'll teach me to save alot more often!   

[samoht04]

Always save before travelling! 

[ladynewbie]

Now I'm thinking that France itself might be bugged.  I restored an old backup and sent a different Sim to France.  This Sim won't leave either.  When I use the phone to send her home, she calls and talks, but nothing happens after that.  I've also been trying to get her to be friends to a French Sim so she can try to use a computer to go home, but every time she visits a household it won't let her talk to anyone.  Someone will come to the door, but then it skips or something and sends the other Sim back inside without letting me talk to anyone.  I'm getting kind of frustrated with this, b/c I really want to be able to make nectar, and I don't know of any other way to do it w/o going to France!  I'm not really thrilled w/WA, other than the items and new skills it offers, so I don't really travel that much.  Anyone know of any way I can learn Nectar Making w/o having to go to France? 

[Happytime]

Heya ladynewbie! I've had many troubles on vacations, and France for true seems to be the one that causes me (and my Sims) the greatest difficulty. I was to the point where if I had a Sim on Vacation in France, I'd save after each and every opportunity I completed, and even then sometimes things would act up.

You can get the Nectar Maker using a cheat:

• Open the cheats console ("control+Shift+c" in Windows, "Command+Shift+c" if you are using a Mac)
• Enable Testing Cheats (type "testingcheatsenabled true")
• Open the cheats console again
• Type "buydebug"

This unlocks the special stuff available in vacation venues (like the "L'amour des Fruits Nectar Maker"). You can find it by entering Buy Mode, then "Sort by Room", you need to look for the little question mark (it's labeled "Debug"). Once you click it, you'll see some tabs, you want the "Misc. Objects" tab, and the Nectar Maker is near the bottom. It'll still cost you 1,500 Simoleans, but you can buy it without going to France.

I don't know if you have Ambitions installed, sometimes I've seen the various Nectar Making books available for sale at the Consignment Shop, but you should just be able to have your Sims start using the Nectar Maker and you'll start increasing your skill without reading the books.

Hope this helps!

  -- Happytime

[ladynewbie]

Thanks Happytime! 

I knew I had read something about letting me buy the stuff from abroad w/o having to go there, I just couldn't remember exactly what it was.  And I did have 2 of the 3 Skill Books from the Consignment Shop, but they were the 2 highest ones.  I would have liked to get the fruit from France, but I think I can live w/o that, if my game is gonna bug every time I go there!   

Thanks again!   

[Happytime]

Yay! Glad I could help, LadyNewbie!

  -- Happytime

[Ezradimos]

I have also been stuck in another country on vacation.  I was stuck in Egypt and no matter what I tried to do I could not leave.  I ended up deleting the game.  If anyone has an answer to this I am all ears 

[Saltypaws]

I got stuck in Egypt as well, but I had saved before I went on vacation and just went out of the game.  Not sure why it does it, but I hope this is going to be one of the fixes.  So far it only happened one time, but makes me nervous to take a vacation and I really like traveling.

[Happytime]

The times my Sims have had vacations / "Adventures" have been fun, but like you SaltyPaws, I'm always very "nervous" before I go on vacations.

World Adventures has always been pretty buggy (at least for me), I was hoping Ambitions would patch it, but I don't see trips to France (the one that seems buggiest for me) improved much (if at all); in fact, my "Excavate" action's been broke since Ambition shipped.

Let's hope Car Stuff has a robust patch in it to fix vacation problems, but there's no telling.

I just ensure I save the game before any vacation, and as soon as my Sims arrive at their destination, I save another version of the game (with a different name). Then, if my Sim gets stuck or trapped on vacation, I can at least "roll back" to the point before they left.

While on vacation, I save repeatedly, the only time my game's crashed is when my Sims are on vacation, so I go into "save, save, save" mode.

I've never had any corrupt saves, so this has worked for me when I've an opportunity I don't want to miss (or want to go grab some of the vacation specials like the martial arts toy or the Nectar Maker).

And I did have success (twice) with a "work-around" when my Sims were stuck on vacation: I'd become close friends with a "native," and invite them to "Move in." Once, the game looked like it froze for a minute or two, and then the load screen popped up loading the "normal" town. The other time, it just acted like the vacation was over and loaded up the "normal" town.

Both times my Sim was returned home, without the person my Sim had invited to move in. So it "sorta-semi" worked getting my Sim back home, but it's not worked consistently, and I still can't figure out why the Sim from vacation venue didn't "return back." Most likely the game was already seriously messed up, so there's not telling what was going on behind the scenes.

  -- Happytime

[Esther1981]

Thanks Happytime!  

I knew I had read something about letting me buy the stuff from abroad w/o having to go there, I just couldn't remember exactly what it was.  And I did have 2 of the 3 Skill Books from the Consignment Shop, but they were the 2 highest ones.  I would have liked to get the fruit from France, but I think I can live w/o that, if my game is gonna bug every time I go there!    

Thanks again!    

You can also get the fruit the same way Happytime told you. They are in the debug options under the gardening tab. They start out normal, but you can quickly get them to perfect!

[Ezradimos]

Well , I love adventuring too.  I have most tombs down pat , still trying to figure out the lil trick with the Emperor's 1st tomb with out getting stuck between the arrow traps and the stairs.  I downloaded Fast Lane last night and no fixes to WA excavations [sigh.]  Still a fun pack to get.  With adventuring I do not get a job just live off the land.

[Happytime]

Howdy Ezradimos! Welcome to the Forum!

Let's hope Car Stuff has a robust patch in it to fix vacation problems, but there's no telling.

Yeah, well, the Sims3 is plenty fun even without "vacation-time." Sometimes it's hard looking at a game / playing a game to understand and appreciate there are thousands of instructions going on, thousands of times a second, to keep the fun going on.

It's really a miracle it works from one session to the next, so like I said ... I'm just VERY careful when I have one of my Sims head off to vacation. I save before, during (over and over and over), and then after.

It'll be nice if EA fixes it.

  -- Happytime