I too am having the no sims at hotspots problem.

The busiest it got was at a dive bar, not at the time it was meant to be popular. My sim was only there to promote a film and about 6 other sims, including celebrities, joined her. But aside from that - nada. I really want to see some celebs at the high end clubs!

And like Aliydna, I get loads of sims at protests at city hall. I get loads of sims at house parties when I throw them. But the nightlife in LN is just not happening.

Edit: It does seem to be places with the velvet rope but in my game sims don't even TRY to get in!

I've notice that some bars are empty while other places are packed; and like the previews showed us, it really is because of popularity. Just last night I had my sim and a small group of sims go to a bar; and upon arriving we got a new moodlet and a message that stated that "This place is hotter than..." (can't remember the whole message). The moodlet was because the place was packed full of sims. A lot of the 'popularity' seemed to stem from the fact that several 3, 4, and even a 5 star celebrity were at the bar, mingling amongst the 'normal' sims.

So, I really believe it does take into effect which bar will be popular on Monday, then Tuesday, etc... Have yet to find out which place, but I assume the computer may have an option to find out or even the Newspaper.

I get those messages that say that the bar is hot, and it's lies! Just my sim, the bouncer and the bartender. It's a bug, and it sucks.

Maybe the bar is packed, but it just happens to be Ninja Night (Ninjas drink free!).

I have heard that you can check hotspots via the newspaper. But how do you do that? My newspaper doesn't have a special option for it, and when i read it it just tells me about sporting events or families moving in or out.

Sometimes an article will come up with a Celebrity Hot Spot headline that will tell you. It doesn't happen every day.

Sometimes I get alot of Sims at a hot spot, others only 1 or 2.

I wonder if the bartender skill has anything to do with it...

Maybe you need to wait until their skill get higher or play one and crash course their ass.

Carl's Sims Guide has a detailed Mixologist article.

http://www.carls-sims-3-guide.com/

I finally got into the clubs after some sort of bug made it so none of the bouncers appeared and we couldn't get in, to find that there was no one there even when I got the hot spot message. No one is ever in the really swish clubs its only the grimy bars, I also have only ever seen two vampires I have no idea where the vampire club is but its also probably empty. Kinda sucks the fun out the game ):

Like the name says you should find the vampires in the bar called Plasma 101! Its the same name the Plasma Fruits exclusive for vampires have!
But for some reason all the other sims go there but the vampires not... At least in my game...

the NPC vampires in my game go everywhere also at daylight, its no problem to call a vampire with the phone and get him/her to your apartment/house, also at daylight.

I have found some vampires in my game, but your right, that the town itself is empty somehow! I dont see any sims outside, most only a few in the big park. But thats it... Only from 3 pm - 3-4 am there are more sims in the bars and clubs

exactyl! in the small towns we get townies all over the place walking around or doing whatever, but the city is empty? no sims on the steets no sims in the clubs?

The only bug I'm having is that I can't tend bar. Oh, I'll stand there and wipe counter, polish glasses and the like, but when someone comes up and sits down, my sim just stands there and the "make drink" queue appears and disappears. The customer eventually leaves, shrugging....

Shoosh Malooka, did you just say, "thither and yonder?" LOL

It looks like the max number of sims at any venue is capped by the game based on the rating it assigns to your comp's processor. Really high-end machines will allow up to 20 sims to be attracted to a lot, while machines with craptastic processors will cap the max at 4 . To change this requires either a core mod or a modified GraphicsRules file (to trick the game into thinking you have a better processor than you do).

I'm having the same problem e___e Lots of sims, but no bartender...I have an oportunity that needs me to take a drink at someplace...but I've tried going there 4 nights and no bartender could be found .-.

Now it does really seem like it's my game capping the amount of other sims on community lots to 4. For the sports bar I took away one of the velvet ropes so that left 1 bouncer, 2 mixologists plus the 1 visitor. When I had the buggy version of Twallan's register mod that prevented bartenders and bouncers from showing up, there were always 3 or 4 other sims showing up. When I took two of my sims to a park 4 others came. The previous night, my sims crashed a house party and there were 4 or 5 sims (not counting the 3 residents) which was great. So I'm 99% sure it's a slightly too strict limit for me.

One way to tell if it is the game throttling back the number of sims on the lot is to take a look at the DeviceConfig file in your Sims 3 user folder and find the following block:

The CPU rating will let you know what the game will cap venue populations at:

1. 4 sims
2. 9 sims
3. 13 sims
4. 20 sims

I have this :

=== Rating info ===
GPU: 3 GPU Memory: 4 CPU: 1 RAM: 4 CPU Speed: 1596 Threading: 3

But however, in my game, there is always NO sims in the bars and hotspots. (even when I put the graphical settings at the minimum and even if I remove the barrier ropes)
I hate it, what's the point in being alone in a bar ? That really sucks. EA'd better make a patch for this and quick !

EDIT : I went to a bar called Edgis or something like that, and there was a lot of people in fact. The same with the grind. Maybe it's related to those ropes. I'm gonna delete them all and check this out.

we can change the cpu setting in this file ?

Curious. I have an Intel i7 quad-core processor at 1.73 GHz and the DeviceConfig file rates it as 1. I know the game only uses two cores, but still...

Are you sure it is a processor thing? My machine is just ok but I can invite 12 or more sims to a party and if its at a venue there's also the bartender(s), Bouncer(s) and the host sims so there can be anywhere between 12-20 sims on the lot. But there's never 12-20 sims at the clubs when I just send my sims there. I thought perhaps it had to do with there being only 60 sims in LN and with 8 clubs and bars at least 25% of them are at work each night. I am going to try populating the town with my sims.

Mine says:

GPU: 4 GPU Memory: 4 CPU: 1 RAM: 3 CPU Speed: 1994 Threading: 3
Adjusted CPU: 2259 RAM: 3069 Adjusted RAM: 2557 Cores: 2

Which number are we meant to be looking at? I get a lot of sims at parties but hardly any at venues, even with the rope barriers taken down.

Here's my log:

=== Rating info ===
GPU: 4 GPU Memory: 4 CPU: 3 RAM: 4 CPU Speed: 2194 Threading: 3
Adjusted CPU: 2925 RAM: 3069 Adjusted RAM: 3069 Cores: 2

And I'm STILL only seeing about 4 sims at a hotspot if I'm lucky! Also, I tend to see a group of three sims clustered at the entrance of either the subway or an apartment building that my sim is walking by. But that's it as far as townies walking about town. Bridgeport is one heck of a lonely place. I'm getting bored living in this ghost town. As far as neighbors, I only have one in my highrise, even though there is one other apartment on my floor.

I'm going to experiment and move in a bunch of sims from the sim bin into various apartment buildings around town and see if that picks things up a bit. If I have any luck, I'll report back.

This is mine, I am having the same problem but my computer should be MORE than able to run the game. I can run it on max settings with zero problems,

=== Rating info ===
GPU: 5 GPU Memory: 4 CPU: 3 RAM: 4 CPU Speed: 2400 Threading: 3
Adjusted CPU: 2800 RAM: 4094 Adjusted RAM: 3582 Cores: 4

CPU gets a 3, so if what Fernweather posted is correct I should be able to have 13 sims. Parties are fine, I went to a dive bar and there was one other customer but at the other bars and clubs it is just me and the staff. Tried it without any CC or mods but no change.

All points to a bug to me.

What CPU do you have? I'm getting the feeling the game is using only clock rate as the deciding factor for the CPU rating. (Yes, I know I'm getting off topic, but this is really confusing me.)

Intel Quad Core Q6600 @2.4GHz. a few years old yes but more than surpasses the game requirements.

I don't buy this theory nor do I like it. And I believe we are finding out that isn't true either. But I will say this, it seems like after ambitions came out, towns seemed to empty out a lot more.

To be honest I sort of noticed this emptying out of the cities a lot earlier. I think the current theories of the velvet rope and my theory of recent patches are more likely the problem.

It definitely takes a lot out of the whole appeal of this release when you have patched out sims actually participating in the world.

And I for one don't believe for a second that the sim sprites themselves are that CPU intensive, of course it is the hi detail lots that would be more intensive.

And a question to end this, has anyone had multiple paparazzi following them, for me, it always seems like the same guy. And not only that, but the amount of celebrities itself is extremely weak.

Clearly we've got some hard coded bugs to work out