I was reading the questions about gossip in the Stupid/Random Questions thread and realised that I don't really understand how gossip works.

I don't currently have any gossip suppressing mods in my game, as I was under the impression that they would stop my sims gossiping entirely. But I just read in BO's No Sim Loaded thread that they will still gossip even with gossip removing mods installed. So what do they gossip about if all the gossip has been suppressed/removed?

Also, does gossip ever get removed/recycled if you have no mods in (and don't use the batbox)? They can't always gossip about the same things, can they?

I like the idea of gossip; that sims will talk about what's been happening in the neighbourhood, but gossip is always talked about as something that will bug up your game and needs to be removed. What is actually wrong with it?

I had the exact same question. I am more afraid to play the darn game by the minute. So many things seem to be broken?! It's next to impossible to play the game vanilla!

When Sims gossip, it forms a hidden memory. Those hidden memories have no function, take up space, and are prone to corrupting. They are one of the things that become problematic when you delete a Sims, because they are bits of data all over the hood that become broken, if they involve the deleted Sim.

When BO says his mods prevent gossip, he means the gossip memory. That is what you clear with the batbox. The mods do not prevent your Sims from gossiping or restrict what they can talk about, it just prevents the hidden memory from forming when they do.

No, gossip is not removed in vanilla code.

I have no idea of anything anymore. I'm just confused and I think I upset BO by thinking the gossip thing wasn't working and i'm just all kinds of confused.

Apparently No Trash Memories is supposed to prevent gossip memories in the first place, so I switched to the special version of No Sim Loaded so I wouldn't have 2 mods that apparently do the same thing, but I know i'll still remove gossip with the batbox but apparently that removes more than you'd think (what BO said on leefish) and i'm just


I give up. I just wanna play and enjoy a game, not lose my head worrying about it!

Any Corrupt data flies through a hood thanks to gossip.

Gossip isn't bad on it own, but when neighbourhood corruption attaches to another sim because they gossiped about a corrupted sim then the gossip is infected and spreads the corruption quite easily.

At least that's what I have gathered from reading about gossip and Neighborhood corruption. Someone else will have a fuller picture

They can always gossip and if there is nothing interesting they will gossip about dogs. I've seen that as a gossip topic on a few occasions.

I doubt you offended BO Are you at all familiar with SimPE? It'd help if you could go check Sims memory to see what kind of gossip it is that the batbox is removing.

Or you can leave it be and just play. That's totally fine too

How do I see what memories it's removed? I know how to look at a Sim's memories..

The batbox won't remove anything that would cause harm to the game by being removed using the remove/gossip option would it?

I see. So how do they decide what to gossip about? I was under the impression that the gossip memory was there because it was triggered when sims looked for something to gossip about, but it appears that isn't true.

Edit: I was a little leery about what the batbox might be removing too. If no Sim Loaded just clears up unneeded stuff instead of inhibiting gossip topics then I might use that instead (I currently have the doesn't remove gossip version).

Gossip is fine and good for relationship building; and I think both the Batbox and No Sim Loaded will only clear up hidden memories - You can see (guess? interpret?) what they are gossiping about (or who) in the
speech bubbles - at least, that's how I know. They sometimes gossip about a Sim sitting right their on their sofa!

Pescado "explained" that the remove all boring gossip option will clear the gossip that has fallen so low in the list of hot gossip topics that it actually cannot surface, or something . So I guess it's not removed, it's there, just unused.

You can't see them once it's removed them! You can look on SimPE before you remove them though. But if you're using one of BO's mods to prevent Gossip memories, you'll never get them in the first place. To see them, temporarily remove that mod, and play the 'hood for a while without it. Then open it up in SimPE and look at the recent memories of Sims who have been active. You will almost certainly see some gossip memories. They look like this in SimPE:
[Invisible] Made Out With George Rawlinson (0x7FDDF96D) (Gossip about Curtis Berry (0x224F575))
That is in Deric Nisbet's memory, so he'd heard what those two had been up to, and he's ready and willing to pass it on to any one who'll listen! That's actually quite a juicy piece of gossip in that it's a bit salacious. A lot of Sims gossip is just mundane and boring (and some of it is ancient history!).
Removing Gossip memories doesn't do any harm. New ones soon generate. Deric may no longer talk about what Curtis and George have been doing, but he'll find something else to gossip about. Personally I like to see what my Sims are talking about, so I only occasionally use the batbox to remove gossip. "Delete all" seems to delete all gossip in the whole neighbourhood.

I believe deleting "trash memories" is equally harmless as far as corruption goes, but it removes lots of memories (met Sim, learned to coo cook ..., etc.) that I very much want to keep. I think in many ways it's our memories that make us who we are. So I never use that batbox option.

Thank you BO's No Trash Memories says it prevents the gossip memories in the first place, but it's nice to know whatever removing gossip using the batbox before has done isn't a problem either There are options on the batbox I don't touch because I don't know what they do exactly lol. I *think* I know enough, and if i'm proven wrong I can always ask . I have used the remove gossip and trash memories (which no longer appear-the trash memories-after getting BO's No Trash Memories, so that was before I got that mod that I used that option) and otherwise I use it reroll the randomize generator thing to avoid first baby syndrome so I don't have clones walking around and sometimes upgrade a Sim from CAS or Pre-made to have went through Uni. I think that's all I ever use it for.

Yeah, I stopped using the remove trash option too, Pescado's idea of trash is... sui generis. Like moving out to find your own place is not worth remembering according to him
I have mods to prevent the mystery sim and met subject, and vermin memories (that was just getting ridiculous with AL bad witches), and I mostly remove everything else I want to remove manually, using SimPE.

That's what I don't get about gossip. How does gossip get formed and made talkable about? Is it through the formation of these memories and will therefore be lost if they are deleted or is it via something else?



Yeah, I like most of those memories too. What mods do you have to prevent the specific memories you mentioned? Although even 'met sim' can be useful if you want to look back at exactly when your sim did meet someone.

They gossip about their memories - this generates new gossip memories. It's those that gossip suppresing mods get rid of because they can become corrupted (though they are easily fixable and the fact that you can delete them at will should tell you that generally gossip memories are not really a problem as regards corruption).


It's mostly the blue memories (the hidden ones - hidden in game I mean) though Pescado's mods will also remove Met memories and other memories he considers superfluous (which is why I don't use them).

I like the idea of gossip and I have no interest in clearing it, so I don't clear it ever. I use No Sim Loaded but not No Trash Memories.

In the pre-releases, they gave the impression that gossip would work to transfer knowledge of certain events to other sims. So for example alerting a sim to the fact that their SO has been cheating on them, or causing a sim to congratulate another on a promotion or new baby, now I don't think that these actually work, but it would be cool if they did and so I like to keep the illusion to myself that they might.

Perhaps at some point in the future I might attempt to poke around in these kinds of memories and see if it's possible to, for example, adjust a sim's reputation up/down when they are gossiped about, adjust relationship with the recipient of the gossip, (perhaps relating to aspiration? Romance sims could respect a sim more for cheating but lose relationship points for getting married?) apply/remove furiousness, or block congratulating/admiring unless they have a gossip memory which shows the congratulatee in a good light. Though I think if it could be done that Chris Hatch might have attempted something already, it sounds like his kind of thing.

Oh that's interesting - there is some extra data in the second tab (raw data) of the memories. The first values are about the nature of the memory itself, values 7-10 are to do with the emotional weightings but there are two other values after that. I think the first thing to do is see if the emotional weighting and these two other values transfers with gossip. I'll check it out though that means actually playing to generate some gossip!

Ah. I don't care what my Sims remember or don't I can pretend either way. So having used the batbox to delete Trash Memories and Gossip isn't harmful, perhaps not really useful with BO's mods, but not harmful, that's what I was worried about . It'll just delete memories that don't actually need to be deleted but cause no harm in doing so?

Correct - you can use the memory editor in SimPE to edit memories at will. Just don't fiddle with the grey or green ones. Black or blue and you're fine.

I'm still confused. Does deleting a gossip memory with No Sim Loaded or SimPE or anything mean that memory can never make the rounds as gossip again?

But gossip is fun.

No the gossip memory is a separate item. What the game does is make a copy of the original memory and then the sim 'shares' it with another sim (the other sim gets the memory). In SimPE these memories show up in blue and are hidden in game (you can't see them in the memories panel though you will see them as sims talk to each other - that's what the icons are in their conversation bubbles some of the time). So the gossip memory 'belongs' to the other sim in the conversation not the sim it originated with. The original sim can make another copy of the memory and give it to another sim and, in fact, the game does this all the time. The only check seems to be that the game looks for the receiving sim already having a copy of the gossip memory. If they don't have the memory, they can be given it - though it has to be said this is a buggy aspect of the coding and it's not unusual for sims to have multiple copies of the same gossip memory. It also means that if you delete the gossip memories, the same sims can get them again.

The point of the memory mods was to help remove damaged and/or excessive numbers of memories - they get damaged easily and can also be damaged through deleting sims (which is why people are concerned about it). Pescado made the option on the batbox - this was the first tool we had to delete memories - so people could get rid of corrupted memories without having to use the memory editor in SimPE (which at the time was the only way to do it). Editing individual memories is not hard but editing an entire neighbourhood is a hell of a chore, so Pescado automated it. BO's mod does the same task though in a less FOJ fashion and, I think, does it without the player having to do anything (I don't use either mod myself as I hand edit memories but that's because I have a lot of experience of doing it).

So it started out with Curtis telling someone, "I made out with George Rawlinson last night," and this "friend" then deciding it would be a good idea to pass this snippet of information on to the whole town. I suppose you learn who your real friends are. It pays to watch what you're saying and who you say it to!

I had wondered if it might have started with someone who saw them both making out.
Like someone saying to Mary Sue, "Have you heard what your Daniel's been up to with Kaylynn Langerak?". So it would be very much in Daniel's interest that you delete or suppress gossip memories. I think this rumour that gossip memories can corrupt your 'hood is itself a piece of gossip that's been put about by Daniel Pleasant!

Indeed

Yes, in my last post I should have said sims can also pass on gossip memories to a third party and that's how they spread through the neighbourhood, fanning outward.