Yep the low hedge and high hedge that just everybody likes to use is one of the biggest offenders. Amjoie - nope rocks and plants at the base does not seem to stop the horses from thinking they they shouldn't go between the trees. I even had a rider on a horse trapped at my beach cafe with two sets of the V- palms on each end of a nice tropical looking flower garden. I actually go hunting for the source of lag when I get it, so I have seen first hand things that create the worse kinds of freezes is generally horses, puppies, kittens, and tourists. Anywhere there are stairs seems to be a real problem for all game babies - particularly the animals types. Sims bring their pets to the park that may have stairs up or down somewhere in the park and bless patty it never fails that some dumb sim brought their pup or kitten and placed them on the ground in a staired area, and then the sims walks off and leaves the baby behind. The problem is EA fixed it so the human type babies get ported home, and need to do this for the animal sims babies too, because I have found many a pup or kitten tired, lonely and hungry and stuck in a park because they can't get past the stairs. Also those low fences you speak of - even though sims can seem to get over them to enter a flower area, again baby sims and baby animals seem to forget how to get out and instead see themselves trapped into a high fence area. A gate - which looks stupid with the low fences helps the human sim, but not always the baby pets. Some of them will use gates and for unknown reasons not all will. None of the bigger animals like horses or deer will use the one section gate though - and some will not use anything but that horse looking gate to leave an area, but will use any double gate to enter. Even more weird - right.
Yes Amjoie any fencing can and does trap spawning Sims and horses on community lots as for some darn reason - I don't care if the lot is 64 x 64, have one little walled off flower bed and tourist sims and animals will spawn in side the stupid fenced off area. Leaving an opening in the fence will free tourists, a horse needs two or more spaces free - as they won't always use gates, deer also. The collectible creatures never go anywhere so they are not too much a problem. They are only a problem if they spawn in an area a sim can not reach them, as sims blow a gasket when they can't reach anything - even if it is just to see it - and will toss out a route fail error in your game.
You can help that issue when searching for problems if you see a spawning area and the spawned creature is out of reach, go into edit mode - you will have to use testing cheats with buydebug on - but move the creature/spawner a bit to a clearing or remove the obstacle creating the problem.
Oh and another problem since Generations is junk piles and decor we use to mainly decorate a junky lot or run down lot. You again now need to use two spaces around any of this stuff or it causes route fail. One space will trap creatures if the space is between a fence or decor and the piles of junk or other decor. Even though we see plenty of space because we generally use moveobjects on to place this kind of stuff - sims do not. They see the space as if we had not used moveobjects on. On top of it - since Generations in particular using the moveobjects on cheat now is just asking for lag, freeze, and breaking a lot - as the cheat is starting to break badly, so for builders, I implore you, do not use moveobjects on if you want to not create game problems with your lots. I know it stinks - I used to love the advantage of using that cheat while building, but it has become a real problem in worlds and builds i have been testing for others since Generations, Pets, etc. It is downright lethal in ST if you use it in community lot builds, and almost as bad on ST home lots. About it's only use I can see that does not yet cause problems is with landscaping - so far anyway.
As to the poster who's worlds all breakdown - well i do have the Original Sunset Valley and Riverview saves that still work as good as they always did (they are nearly 3 years old), but just like all my worlds it does take diligence and knowing what to look for that may be creating game breaking situations in a world. I just do regular maintenance in each world as I play - I have over 35 world I constantly rotate, not counting the EA ones - the minute I start seeing a bit of hesitations or hiccups as i call them to find a source. So far it is rare for me not to be able to rectify and eliminate the problem before it really becomes a problem - but it is second nature to me and most people just tend to prefer to start over. No me though - I hate starting over. hehehe
Also I keep all my worlds saves backed up on both my main harddrive and my backup harddrive - and always save them again when I am sure they are running perfectly. Not every world is saveable though, as the game changes - some do need to be revamped by their creators or abandoned.
