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Rsandaa's avatar
Rsandaa
4 years ago
Solved

Store items are displayed as base game items in the buy mode

As the title suggests, some of the Store items in the buy mode are shown as base game items. There is nothing wrong with the functionality of these items, like they still work properly and give appro...
pc
technical issues
  • Rsandaa's avatar
    Rsandaa
    4 years ago

    You mentioning the Store patches gave me an idea. I moved the Store patches from the base game directory to the directory it was in before and the issue disappeared. Since the Store patches were in the base game directory, I think the game thinks the Store items that are patched are part of the base game. So, it appears that this is a 1.69 exclusive "not-a-glitch" glitch if that makes any sense.

    So those who wants to fix this, move the ContentPatch.package from here:

    C:\Program Files (x86)\Origin Games\The Sims 3\GameData\Shared\Packages\ContentPatch.package

    to here:

    Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\ContentPatch

    and the issue should be fixed.

puzzlezaddict's avatar
puzzlezaddict
Hero+
4 years ago

@Rsandaa  This issue has been around for a while and can appearacross all types of installs.  I've seen the same thing with a number of store items, and in testing, another player saw the same issue with exactly the same items, so it appears to be a mistake in the flagging of the items themselves, not anything to do with a corrupt install or the game's patch level.  It's possible though that a store update caused the problem, or that the store patches that used to be downloaded to the user folder in disc and Steam installs and are part of the game's program files in an Origin install are at fault.

For what it's worth, I've also seen cc items categorized as store items, so it does seem to be an easy and not uncommon mistake to make.

Since the store isn't being updated, I highly doubt there's even anyone around who could fix this, let alone the will to spend resources on it.  It might be possible to make custom content clones of the store items, and maybe you could apply a flag for store content if they didn't automatically get a cc flag, but I don't know enough about cc to say how this would work.  And it seems like a lot of effort to go through as well.

Rsandaa's avatar
Rsandaa
4 years ago

You mentioning the Store patches gave me an idea. I moved the Store patches from the base game directory to the directory it was in before and the issue disappeared. Since the Store patches were in the base game directory, I think the game thinks the Store items that are patched are part of the base game. So, it appears that this is a 1.69 exclusive "not-a-glitch" glitch if that makes any sense.

So those who wants to fix this, move the ContentPatch.package from here:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Origin Games\The Sims 3\GameData\Shared\Packages\ContentPatch.package

to here:

Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\ContentPatch

and the issue should be fixed.

  • mate54's avatar
    mate54
    Hero+
    4 years ago
    @Rsandaa I have another problem with my content so I wanted to ask if you have it too. In Buy Mode, I often use the Featured Sets catalog to find content quicker, but when I click on a set and select the item, sometimes it doesn't "pick up" and I can't place it. It's completely random and doesn't always happen, sometimes going into Build and back to Buy Mode fixes it for a while, but it comes back. Do you experience the same thing?
  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    Hero+
    4 years ago

    @Rsandaa  That's quite an interesting outcome.  The issue is definitely not 1.69-only: the other player and I tested on patch 1.70, but that also has the store content patches incorporated into the base game.  I could have sworn there was something weird about store content tags in my Steam install at one point too, but I didn't initially have the store patches in place.  Regardless, it's good to know that this has both a fix and an explanation.

    • Rsandaa's avatar
      Rsandaa
      4 years ago

      There might be other glitches that cause a similar outcome. But every time I tested this with a clean Documents folder before, the items that were categorized as the base game were exactly the same, which is also what caused me to think this issue only happened to Store items that were patched. But like I said there could be other similar issues with this as well. For example, in my game, objects from the Town Life Stuff have the icon of Outdoor Living Stuff, but the filtering works correctly so I don't mind it that much.

      I think in the future, EA might need to update TS3 to work with the new EA Desktop client considering how integrated TS3 is to Origin (they can even hide games with illegal CD keys from the launcher). This is obviously speculation on my part, but if that happens I will push this issue forward so that we can get this fixed while there are some devs around. The game already puts some random *.mp3 files in the Custom Music folder in the Documents, so they might as well put the ContentPatch.package in the correct directory in a similar fashion. If an update happens, hopefully they will fix this considering this appears to be a post 1.69 issue, and they fixed CAW before, which was also bugged post 1.69. If they never need to patch the game or something, at least the issue is not game breaking so it is fine.

      To @mate54 , I remember encountering a similar issue, but it has been a long while since I encountered that. And I remember that fixing itself when I clicked to a non-UI place in the game. But that might be a totally different issue. And I don't really use the sort by room in buy mode which is where the featured sets thing is in, so I sadly can't be of help there ☹️

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