Every expansion pack for the Sims comes with its flaws, and Open for Business is no exception. Now it's been released, the first issues have already been found. One of them was already known since the last patch for Nightlife: Sims at University might be flagged for missing the final exam, if it overlaps with college. See our earlier post for more details about that. Another somewhat small issue, is that custom content is by default disabled. When starting the game for the first time you need to enable it explicitly, and restart the game after that, to make any downloads or hacks available in your game. It's also known that several hacks are still incompatible with the expansion pack, and thus may cause problems with Open for Business. If you're having such problems, disabling hacks might solve the problem.

But there is a bigger problem too, which can cause corruption of lots. Details are a little sketchy, as they are posted on forums anyway, but it seems that if you visit a community lot with a car from Nightlife, they might be unable to get back home properly. The game will let the Sim drive off in their car when directed to, but after that the game doesn't load the home lot. The clock will run fast (similar to what the game does when all playable Sims on the lot are at work or sleeping), and quitting the normal way isn't possible - you have to hit Control+Alt+Delete to terminate the game. The family will probably become unplayable, as the game still thinks the Sim(s) are visiting the community lot, but when trying to load that lot Live mode is not enabled. When visiting the lot with a taxi, this problem does not occur. Some users have also reported that first loading another community lot, that is unowned (i.e. not a business, but a 'classic' community lot) and going home after that helps. A similar problem also seems to exist, when saving the game while visiting a community lot. When reloading the family, Live mode is disabled, only Buy and Build mode are as if you're just editing the community lot. It's impossible to play the family again. Maxis is currently working on a patch to solve these problems, but it's unclear when it will be released. Until then, Maxis advises to visit owned community areas by taxi only. If the problem does occur, press Control, Alt and Delete at the same time, and kill the Sims 2 process. Do not bulldoze the offending community lot or the broken family lot, and avoid playing them until the patch is released. After the patch is released, install it and then you can revisit the family and community lot again. A few more details can be found in a post by MaxoidKane on the official BBS.

Finally, some people are reporting lots to become blank - with all walls, objects, etc. removed - under certain circumstances. It's not yet clear what causes this problem, though it might have to do with custom content.

Maxis is working on a patch to resolve these issues. A release date is not given, but naturally we'll let you know when we know more about this. Meanwhile, if you notice any problems in the game, filling in the feedback form is probably the best way to help Maxis with solving the problem.