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Field Researcher
Original Poster
#1 Old 18th Sep 2017 at 3:42 AM
Default Question about deceased sims in Pre-made Worlds. Possible solution for the ghost issue?
Hey all, today I experimented with ghosts in CAW. I've been using the program since 2014 but I never really went that deep in this aspect.
I searched all the forums I could find about this but there are still some things that bug me quite a lot and I would love to get some help from some more exprienced users out there. I'll try to make this as short as possible, however please read the whole thing to get a full view on what has happened.
NOTE that I'm NOT using any kind of mods.

Alright here's the deal:
Some backstory details
Last week I decided I wanted to edit my favorite world, Sunset Valley (for my personal use) so I can make my game more enjoyable. I made a couple of small edits (such as editting some lots, adding some more pathways here and there, expanding the beach lots into the ocean so swims can actually behave properly in beaches, added some more vegetation etc.) I haven't messed with my sims whatsoever. I did however replace the graveyard with another custom edited version of it. (along with some other lots.)
I thought I was done with the world, until I remembered the whole deal about ghosts and how much CAW hates them. So I immediately installed my edited SV in my game and when I checked the gravestones they were all labeled as "remains". I also saw some sims that were supposed to be in ghost form, as normal living sims around town and at that point I realised I messed up and started all over again. This time without replacing the graveyard (or any other lot that contains a gravestone.) Instead I edited them directly from CAW's EIG and long story short when I checked it in game all of the gravestones seemed to be linked to the right sims. At that point I thought I was done, however I decided to search a little bit about the issue to see if that is the right way to do it.
What I've found so far
From what I've found so far (please correct me if I'm wrong), ghosts can be tricky to add in CAW (if not impossible) especially in brand new custom worlds, without them getting corrupted. I didn't find much about ghosts in pre-made worlds but I found out that even though the gravestones might seem like they are labelled to the right sims, ghosts never appear because the supposedly "ghost" sims are considered as alive and not actually dead. They also get corrupted and they lose all of their relationships and data and all that stuff. So here is what bothers me about the whole thing.
Playtesting, with ghosts
I went ahead and playtested the edited SV today, because I wanted to check for myself if the ghosts actually appear and if they function the way they should be.
So I went to the graveyard with my sim and mourned at a couple of gravestones. Normally the portrait in the bubble, of the sim that's being mourned is supposed to appear as a ghost figure, however in my game it seemed like a normal human sim. I decided to ignore that and waited until midnight for ghosts to appear. Nothing...
At this point I started testing things out and one of them was to get some fireworks and perform an extravanganza in the graveyard, in order to "wake" the ghosts up. To my surprise it worked!!! Now I don't know if that has been tested before or if it is just a simple coincidence, but after doing that, ghosts finally started appearing regularly. They functioned exactly as they should be and their icons in the relationship panel were rendered properly. Plus their relationships with the living sims remained the same. I also checked the Goth and the Crumplebottom mansions and the ghosts seemed to appear there as well. Ghosts kept spawning for the next 3 nights (this time on their own!) until I eventually exited the game. Long story short, ghosts were functioning like normal.
Some help?
So I'm very curious as to what's happening here. Everything seemed to work fine for a couple of sim days so I'm asking you, if I should actually keep the graves or not. I've read on forums that it's better to delete them, since they are useless, but again this time they seemed to work fine. Is this going to corrupt my game in any way at a later date? Is it in any form harmful?
I really don't want to do something to ruin my edits in the world so far. Maybe performing a show with the fireworks, was the trigger to make the living sims appear as ghosts? Maybe the ghost issue has been somewhat resolved at a later patch that I wasn't aware of? (I haven't really found anything about that) I really don't know what do. I wish I had more time to test things out but I don't.

I know there are more experienced users out there and I'd love some help.
Please share your experiences and advice on this. Thank you, especially those that read the whole thing
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Virtual gardener
staff: administrator
#2 Old 18th Sep 2017 at 3:03 PM
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