Game Help Talk:Sims Not Acting Age-Appropriately

Well, it's quite clear you have put a lot of thought and effort into this, and I can see there's a lot of good information that would be helpful to people in diagnosing and fixing age-busted sims... I gotta say that even knowing as much as I do about the way the game works, I find the way the information is presented here extremely confusing. The use of acronyms and special terms for everything makes it so one must keep jumping back to figure out what you're talking about when you say, for instance "CLL-FILS" later in the article. Special terms like "Yatood" and stuff may be cute but I think they just make it harder to understand. I believe simply referencing them as they are later if there are specific circumstances under which different types occur would be clearer to the reader.

If you take a look at some of the other Game Help articles on the FAQ Index - the ones in bold, which indicates they have been updated, edited, and are more or less complete - you will see what kind of formatting and overall feel we've been going for in our new Game Help articles. Most of them regarding actual game glitches have a strong set of big headings - Problem, Cause, Solution. The problem part is especially important, to have the different problems listed there as clearly and easy to understand as possible, so users know that the FAQ they're reading applies to their problem. The Cause part is optional, only listed on FAQs that have a cause that the user can identify and avoid in future. In this case, that would be your "How Infection Can Occur" section... Though I believe giving them specific terms and acronyms is, again, going to be more confusing than simply stating something like...

Causes

Here are the different scenarios under which you can get a sim not acting their proper age:

• Corrupt Character/Social Worker: A corrupted character gets treated as a baby by the game due to a glitch. The game tries to send the social worker to take the corrupted character, but because things are glitching, this cannot occur and the game will lock up.
• Twin Glitch: A glitch occurs while waiting for a second sim to be born, so the second birth does not occur. This can also lock up the game.
• Blocked Child with Social Worker: A glitch which can occur when the social worker shows up to collect a child which is trapped within fences or walls with no entrance, or trapped by objects blocking the path. Generally the social worker will simply beam the child through the wall but sometimes this does not happen, causing a glitch.
• Dead Child with Social Worker: This can occur when the social worker shows up to collect a child which has died. The social worker will then not leave the lot without the child.
• Vehicles: A Nightlife-related bug caused when a car doesn't quite make it back into the driveway properly. This can cause the game to lock.
• Lot Won't Load: Occurs when the lot you selected won't let you enter, locking at the loading screen. This is usually due to custom content or other user file issues, though - please see here to fix that: Game Help:Game Problem.
• Music Switch: If you switch between two game modes (like Build and Buy) too quickly and the music for one mode continues playing after switching to the other. This version generally does not lock up the game, but can be fixed by saving and exiting.

... I think something like this would be more understandable and more readable to the general user. While technical information on the problem may help technically-minded people to better understand the problem, they really don't -need- to and that information will simply confuse people who do not understand computers and the way they work in depth. I -do- understand quite a bit about the game and the description of the "Typical BI-SWILS Scenario" confused me quite a bit... and the information given there, while it may be technically accurate, does not really help anyone fix the problem if they're having it in their game.

I think an overhaul and rewrite, with an eye toward making things concise, easy to read, and idiot-proof is in order. Bear in mind that the average user has roughly the attention span and intelligence of a well-chewed shoe, and write accordingly. I would be happy to help, having grown quite comfortable with our standard Game Help formatting as well as understanding the mind of the common user. Please comment here on the Discussion page if you have any questions or desire my assistance.  :) HystericalParoxysm 05:41, 21 May 2007 (CDT)