Before I make things worse (registered second base game code - game won't start)

You can't mix steam and origin versions of the game. You have to play one or the other. You can take your steam codes and register them to origin. Is your game mixed with steam and origin versions of the game or you have all origin installed?

I have all Origin installed. I just registered the Origin codes for what I bought on Steam in Origin.

If origin is telling you to update the game , than you need to update. You should be on patch 1.69 which will show up in the lower left hand corner of your launcher.

The patch number has, since I first installed on this computer, been - and still is - 1.69. I should probably correct my 2nd post above by saying I registered the code on the old Sims 3 site under register a game, where I've always registered everything, not actually via Origin, which is what it sounded like. It also isn't really telling me I *need* to update. It's just that update is an option under the Origin menu for the game, and it seems as though it shouldn't be there if not needed. However, I stay away from Origin as much as possible, so I don't really know what options *usually* show up.

Looking at it again just now, it appears to have changed my serial code to the new one I put in. Thinking there may be some conflict in my files? Will try pulling my sims 3 documents file and letting it generate a new one.

And . . . Sims 3 opens right up when allowing it to generate a new file. Where in the old files is the serial number? I'd like to put back as much of my old Sims 3 file as possible to avoid redoing much of anything.

Have you tried switching out your new sims 3 folder for the old one? Will the game start once you replace the new sims 3 folder with the old one in documents?

I hadn't tried that yet, thinking something in there was causing a conflict. So, I just did, and the short answer, I guess, is it doesn't work. However, it's not quite that simple. The first time I tried to start it, it loaded right up but without some of the content for the save. Thinking things had unchecked themselves in the launcher, I quit and restarted the launcher. Everything was checked, so I started again, and the game won't start.

This shouldn't be happening, players register the Steam given codes on the TS3 site for use in Origin all the time. In fact, you should have received 1,000 Store Points for the "new" base game registration and again for WA if you had repurchased and reregistered that one (guess WA wasn't part of this purchase though).

Sounds to me like what may have happened is that the new base game registration triggered a patch update on you. Even though you were already on 1.69.something, the Origin silently delivered patch may have been reapplied. Patching, no matter how it's done, can disturb or damage the TS3 user game folder in Documents.

You can't really control "which" game registration Origin uses. What I think you should do from here is keep the new, working game folder and slowly begin copying your content from the older one -- so that's store and custom content (DCCache), mods and package based content, saved sims, installed worlds, until you have enough in place for the saved games to copied over. If your EA Store purchased content in particular no longer works, you many need to redownload it and reinstall it all, a bit at a time, using the Launcher but that would be unusual.

I don't play with origin but maybe @SimplyJen knows.

"igazor;c-16419671" wrote:
This shouldn't be happening, players register the Steam given codes on the TS3 site for use in Origin all the time. In fact, you should have received 1,000 Store Points for the "new" base game registration and again for WA if you had repurchased and reregistered that one (guess WA wasn't part of this purchase though).

Sounds to me like what may have happened is that the new base game registration triggered a patch update on you. Even though you were already on 1.69.something, the Origin silently delivered patch may have been reapplied. Patching, no matter how it's done, can disturb or damage the TS3 user game folder in Documents.

You can't really control "which" game registration Origin uses. What I think you should do from here is keep the new, working game folder and slowly begin copying your content from the older one -- so that's store and custom content (DCCache), mods and package based content, saved sims, installed worlds, until you have enough in place for the saved games to copied over. If your EA Store purchased content in particular no longer works, you many need to redownload it and reinstall it all, a bit at a time, using the Launcher but that would be unusual.

That's what I was going to suggest too if the new folder works.