I haven't played Sims 3 in ages. And I started my game back up again. I really like the look of island paradise, but all the talk and reviews suggest it is a nightmare to play, and you have to jump through a thousand hoops to get it to even work. I am wondering if any of the patches (which I am current on) ever fixed the problems IP was having with lagging and freezing.

The reason I stopped playing was because a bad save file killed my game. The last thing I need is a bad EP.

Speaking of which, off topic, but if anyone has tips on how they protect their save files I would be happy to hear it. I always just saved over my previous save, and now I am using "save as" for every save, but that makes me have a TON of saved games in my game. There has got to be a better way.

I was under the impression that was just the world - Isla Paradiso - that caused all the lag and freezing? I seem to recall that people moved their IP stuff to Sunlit Tides or custom-made worlds instead. Although IP's boat traffic might be a bit too much for some computers to handle, on top of handling other EP content/CC.

I personally back-up my saves and clean out the folder every once in a while. (I now play rotations, so I basically back up every rotation - in the past when I just stuck to one household, generations passed by quicker and I'd do the back-up at the start of every new gen.) I also don't use Save As for every save unless a) a lot has happened since the last save, b) I'm playing a very memory-hogging town, or c) I'm switching worlds. I usually do back-ups at the beginning, middle and end of each week. I also use the Save Cleaner to minimize the size of the saves, and clean out previous back-ups after 2-3 rotations.

Traveler is also a life-saver if you do a lot of travel (obviously) or rotate between different worlds as I do, due to having a built-in Save As prompt function, especially when you run into Error Code 12 while switching worlds and somehow manage to save but corrupt your homeworld-nhd in the process from lack of memory.

Ah, thanks - I've bought IP but haven't installed it yet, so I didn't know. Hmm, and Overwatch doesn't help? Doesn't it normally fire an "Unroutable Sim Found" if they fail to route to their destination for a longer period of time?

The world (isla paradisio?) that comes with get bring the game to a crawl after a few hours of play.

I'm playing Isla Paradiso for the first time. Well, second time - the first game was having a lot of problems, so I started over. I did all the fixes that Don_Babilon posted and also Crinrict's Help Blog . I had one or two CTD's during the first sim week, but now on week 3 it's working fine. No idea how long that will last though....

I wasn't asking for help - just noting my experience with Isla Paradiso And, yes, I think the ctd's were related to the world because I haven't had that happen in any other world that I play. Why would I need any help since my game in that world isn't lagging or malfunctioning at the moment......

I would say do get it. The water travel does cause lag, but you can turn water travel off with the go here mod. For most worlds, I'd do that.
Other than that, it's a really lovely EP that brings a lot to the game.

I haven't played in the IP island, because that kind of unlock game doesn't rock my boat, but I do enjoy a good custom hood with a dive spot.

I really like the Resort aspect of it a lot, enough that i think it adds something to play, but stay out of the town that the game gives you after you're done messing with new features imo. Play the houseboats and mermaids for awhile but don't get attached because your game might be unplayable very quickly.

And just in case, so you don't make the mistake i made....if you have a pregnant mermaid....either have her have the babies at home or teleport her to the hospital because my mermaid once swam for ten sim hours to go give birth at a hospital that would have been a quicker drive imo. Then ten hours back...holding twins.

Even though the Isla Paradiso world is more problematic than others and laggier, too, it's still one of my absolute favourites.
My first game there ran for about 65 weeks and then, for whatever reason, patching it to the Into The Future patch broke it. I then thought that I was done with Isla Paradiso and only started another game there to test a few things. Well, I got attached again and the new game is again in week 50. I was able to fix a lot of the problems that are caused by the lots themselves and not the world and have kept the population low in this new game. I also have Story Progression turned off, play on Epic lifespan or with no aging at all, so there isn't that much of background simulation going on anyway. I love this world and the whole EP.

However, you'll need a fairly decent computer to be able to enjoy it. I sent one of my saves that became troublesome to ellacharmed, and while it was still playable on my computer, although with many problems, she couldn't play it at all.

I personally really like Island Paradise. I haven't played Isla Paradiso all that much, but I love the EP's features, especially sunbathing. resorts are pretty awesome as well, imo. I turned the Salty Springs Resort in Lucky Palms into one and ended up having my sims spend a night there after their home was consumed by fire (that more intense fire mod or whatever it's called really does make house fires more interesting). and of course owning them, if that's your cup of tea, is fun as well. I'm also a huge fan of mermaids in general so that right there was a good reason for me to get it. I honestly just like to watch mermaids swim around sometimes because I think it looks cool and I am that easily amused.

I do usually use Go Here to turn off travel by boat unless I'm specifically using it for something. you can get some interesting routing with boats in the mix. and when I was playing Brooklyn Heights I'd have sims trying to cross the bridge run down to the beach instead and do that whole get on a taxi boat, get off the taxi boat, get on it again, etc. until I either reset them or made them use a carefully selected route bit by bit to get them on the bridge instead of trying to traverse the river.

if you like the sound of the features in Island Paradise I'd say go ahead and get it. I really like sending my sims to the beach now because I feel like they actually have beach related things to do. and like I said, I'm a huge fan of mermaids.

This is also my answer. I am usually a pretty base-game girl, and I don't feel like I need every feature or object! But playing in an otherwise-vanilla Sunset Valley, I found that being able to swim in the ocean or play in the sand made it seem a lot more pleasant and realistic, and I believe my Sims appreciated that.

Thanks for your advice, everyone. Having seen clips and pics, I don't actually like the town Isla Paradiso - and I don't have any interest in seeking the islands out. I mainly want the EP for what it brings in game play - mostly the resorts and a house boat or two would be cool. I was hoping that the problems had been fixed, or that if I play a different town I wouldn't have them. I am still torn.

Can anyone tell me, when you get the EP, does it add any boats houses, islands, or ports to the other towns, or do you have to do that? And can you do all the underwater stuff in the other towns, or just Isla Paradiso?

You always have the best screen shots.

It's not as easy as it sounds here. And dive spots aren't the only issue.

Ports need lots that are partially on land and partially on water. But most of the other worlds don't have these kinds of lots. So you'd have to add them with the World Editor function in Edit Town and this comes with its own series of problems: first of all adding new lots to a world can ruin the world routing, secondly it is sometimes difficult to find an appropriate spot on the coasts for such a lot, thirldly, once placed, the lot might not function properly. And even if you manage to find a good spot to place a port lot, once the boat is moored it can still happen that you cannot leave the port and drive around in your houseboat.
Also, simply adding a port lot exported from IP and into the lot bin can lead to odd results when the shorelines of the world and the lot don't match and you might end up with ugly lot tearings.

Similar with adding smaller islands. I tried in several other worlds without success to add small islands. Placing or creating them on newly placed lots in the water was possible but then none of my Sims could get there - route failure.

This is perhaps the biggest disadvantage of the IP EP. You cannot really play with everything that came with that EP in most other worlds. You'll need a world that is specifically made for it. And personally I haven't really found a custom world yet that is satisfactory enough in that respect. Isla Paradiso is still the "best" world for the Island Paradise EP.

It's hit and miss.

I had three ports in Bridgeport in a test game. All ports worked fine as ports but suddenly subway routing was damaged. Sims using the subway were unable to resurface from the subway station and continued to route underground.
I placed two of the small islands from IP into the middle lake of Sunlit Tides. None of my Sims could get there.
There is a whole thread somewhere here where someone had made a nice island from scratch in Hidden Springs. It looked totally okay in the water but their Sims could not reach it nor could they leave it.
I placed the mermaid island lot here from MTS in roughly the same spot suggested by the creator in Sunset Valley. My Sim couldn't leave it and she considered the appropriate place to reach it from land to be behind Agnes Crumplebottom's house and of course failed.

It is not without reason that there are maps circling around Sims forums where people have painstakingly researched where in pre-IP worlds houseboat ports can be properly placed.
If you do not hit the exact right spot where they work your water and port lots will be useless and may have damaged the whole world in its course, too.

So yes, you are right when you assume that people have played around with world edit mode. But you are wrong when you assume that just because it worked for you some times that it works every time.

Thanks Don. I play Bridgeport a lot and been wanting to plop some ports down but haven't got round to it yet. Any places in particular I should avoid when planning where to put these ports and where not to place them?

@ChaoticMoira - go ahead and get IP, you'll love it. I don't use the water travel a lot as most of my sims are self employed. I do use it once in awhile and I personally haven't experienced the horrendous lag that anyone in these forums have experienced.

yeah, I don't know about getting house boats and dive lots in other worlds. it's something that's never interested me enough to try. from the sound of it, it depends how much effort you want to put into getting that working. your sims can, however, still snorkel in whatever ocean they want.

as mentioned before, if you like building get the resort rabbit hole rugs so you don't have to rely on the towers EA provided (they're really not versatile) and you can create any kind of resort you want. from scratch, from other lots, whatever you want. you could put one in a vacation world.

and I don't know how important this it to you, but I like a lot of the clothes that came with IP, especially for female sims.