The Sims Franchise Condition and Bug Dictionary

The following is a dictionary page defining the terminology of various things related to bizarre conditions, situations, and bugs in The Sims 2 and The Sims 3, as those terms are used on this wiki and in all Dozerfleet literature. Many of these conditions are not observable in the original Sims game series, as a lot of these problems involve issues with fully-scripted and fully-animated 3-D objects. Classic Sims were sprites, which averted a lot of these issues.

Disclaimer: Not all of these terms are standard vocabulary for all members of the greater Sims Community. Propagate these terms, but understand that not everyone will accept them.

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BI-SWILS

 * 1) n., abbrev., Boddler-Induced Social Worker Infinite Loop Syndrome. (see below)

See Boddler Sub-Classes for more-detailed explanations of the Sub-Classes and how to deal with each one.

boddler

 * 1) n., Any object or character in a game with one or more non-synchronized layers of code which render it incompatible with its normal function.
 * 2) n., (as Boddler),
 * 3) A Sim whose AI age and geometric age are maligned.
 * 4) A type class of Sim in which the Sim's AI age and geometric age are maligned in such a way as that the Sim behaves younger than they really are.  Differentiated from an Endault Type, which behave older than they really are.
 * 5) (see below)
 * 6) v., To make an object into a boddler, to malign an object's layers of code out of sync.

Also: "boddlerate," "boddlerize," etc.

Not to be confused with "bastardize," which means to remove the legitimacy or legality of an object.

Boddler-Induced Social Worker Infinite Loop Syndrome
n., A condition in which someone's The Sims 2 game permanently locks the player into the gaming environment due to the inability to get rid of the Social Worker NPC because of an animation error caused by the presence of a Boddler somewhere on the lot, such that the Social Worker cannot get what she came for. The safest way out is with the Windows Task Manager.

gnoming
v., adj. gnomed, Making your Sim more like a gnome in terms of body proportion.

What does this mean?

Gnoming is accomplished through misuse of the stretchSkeleton cheat in Sims 2, and through temporal skeletal shrinking on Boddlers in Sims 3. In Sims 2, Sims' skeletons can be stretched or squashed along the way in terms of the size of their legs and mid-sections, but past a certain threshold of tolerance the rest of their bodies will not follow suit. As a result, they will have arms disproportionately long and heads disproportionately big, in keeping with the difference between gnome and human body proportions explained in an episode of  David the Gnome .[1]

In Sims 3, Sims aged up to a certain age stage will retain those size assignments permanently until aged up to an older age stage. If the player has a Cheen, for example, they will be a Child that's as tall as a Teen in storked dimensions, until told to do something. In motion, they will gnome down to normal Child dimensions, then stork back up to Teen dimensions when the task is completed.

This process is not to be confused with gnomifying, which is to make someone's clothing, hair, and makeup more in keeping with the archetypal garden gnome, in essence, dressing up as a gnome.

Note: It is also not to be confused with turning a Sim into a Garden Gnome Object, which is what one third-party mod allows players to do as part of the "Assassination Career" skill. All that process does is replace one in-game object with another, in a way that both adds to the assassin's body count and performs Total Annihilation on his/her victim. Also note: Animations will not align properly on gnomed subjects in Sims 2, and are the only thing that will keep boddlerized Sims from looking ugly and distorted in Sims 3.

storking
v., Making your Sim more like a stork in terms of body proportion, the opposite error of gnoming.

What does this mean?

This is accomplished through misuse of the stretchSkeleton cheat in Sims 2, and more commonly through misuse of the NRass Industries Master Controller in Sims 3. However, excessive application of Delphy's (or anyone else's) Sim Body Height adjusters can also lead to storking.

In Sims 2, Sims' skeletons can be stretched or squashed along the way in terms of the size of their legs and mid-sections, but past a certain threshold of tolerance the rest of their bodies will not follow suit. As a result they will have arms disproportionately short and heads disproportionately tiny.

Since gnoming occurs when they are made too short, storking occurs when they are made too tall. Their legs will become as tall as a house, or close, and the rest of them will not be large enough in circumference to match and balance their legs. Hence, they'll be stork-legged.

Just as a cartoon inspired the term gnoming, so also a cartoon inspired the term storking. The stork being alluded to is in the gender-stamping room of the 1936 cartoon short Cupid Gets His Man.

In Sims 3, storking is the only known major symptom of creating Boddlers. Note: Animations will not align properly on storked subjects in Sims 2, and animation is the only thing that allows Boddlers to gnome back to normal-looking skeletons. Inactivity storks Boddlers to distorted dimensions.

BWIFS
n., abbrev., Bad Window Freezing Syndrome. A problem in The Sims 3: Late Night. Some windows, when selected, freeze the game. A future patch may fix this.

DECHI-SWILS
n., abbrev., Dead Child-Induced Social Worker Infinite Loop Syndrome. A problem in The Sims 2. A Social Worker NPC puts the game into an infinite loop, trapping the player inside the game not because a child is a Boddler, but because the game fails to inform the Social Worker that the child she has come for has actually died.

CHITI-SWILS
n., abbrev., Child-in-Trap-Induced Social Worker Infinite Loop Syndrome. A problem in The Sims 2. Usually, when a child is trapped inside a room with no doors or windows, and the Social Worker cannot get to that child. This seems to only be a problem with Children, as Babies and Toddlers magically teleport into the Social Worker's van.

CLL-FILS
n., abbrev., Corrupt Lot Loading Failure Infinite Loop Syndrome. (Known on Mod The Sims' wiki as "Bad Lot Issues.") A problem that can occur in either game, but is particularly noteworthy in The Sims 2. A failure of the game to load a particular lot, house, zone, level, stage, neighborhood, etc., resulting from a corrupt or missing object being assigned to that location, in which the failure to load locks up the game and possibly the operating system as well. The operating system threat seems to be a bigger issue on 32-bit versions of Windows XP than on any other type of operating system. Most 64-bit versions of Windows avert the OS lockup.

CT-BILS
n., abbrev., Corrupt Twin Birth Infinite Loop Syndrome. Theoretically possible in The Sims 3, this site has only observed it happening in The Sims 2. A woman having twins fails to execute birth animations for the second child, causing the game to lock up indefinitely waiting for the failed animation to execute. Usually easily averted in Sims 3 due to hospital births being an option. Hospital rabbit holes eliminate the need for actual birth animations.

MURSWIS
n., abbrev., Music Role Switch Syndrome. Switching game modes too quickly confuses the game concerning which mode plays what music, if any. Example: Live mode plays the Buy Mode music and Buy Mode is suddenly silent. Rare, and an easily-fixable glitch. This has only been observed in Sims 2, and seems to be near-completely-eliminated for anyone playing Open For Business and up. Using 2 GB of RAM or more is recommended to prevent this from happening, as systems with less RAM may not be able to handle the game.

TNFL
n., abbrev., Task Normalcy Fatality Loop. Anything involving programming loop logic failures which disrupt both the player's ability to play the game properly and the operating system's ability to interact with said game properly. Can happen with almost any game, or any piece of software. Individual cases and results may vary.

TNM
n., abbrev., Task Normalcy Menace. Anything which proves an annoyance and disrupts normal OS operations, but which doesn't require dramatic action to stop or repair. In The Sims 2, it is anything which causes the game to absorb unusually high amounts of virtual memory off the hard drive (such as pre-Seasons weather hacks) or causes the game to not function normally, as in the case of MURSWIS (see above). In either case, the problem can be corrected by exiting the game through normal means. Additional drastic measures (such as the Windows Task Manager) are not necessary. To avert this issue, play on PCs that have at least 2 GB of RAM.

A full 8 GB are recommended for Sims 3, especially if played on Windows 7. For even better results with either game, play on a Hewlett-Packard with at least 1 GB of dedicated video memory. Dell computers may need to have their video cards upgraded, as Dell does not prioritize video except for its XPS series. Make sure you use an HP that already has that much dedicated video memory, as HP does not prioritize high-watt power supplies, so upgrading the card may require upgrading your power.

VERFILS
n., abbrev., Vehicle Return Failure Infinite Loop Syndrome. Nightlife cars fail to return to lots properly, for whatever reason, and the game becomes locked up until they can return successfully, which is next-to-never. This appears to have been partially fixed with later expansion packs, and therefore, occurs much less often. Cars in Sims 3 seem to work on a completely different system altogether, such that VERFILS never happens.
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