After playing for a week Sim time, I finally took my Sim on a vacation to China. After doing a few tombs and collecting those special coins, I went looking for the merchant so I could spend them. I found her after zooming out on a city map view and high-biked it over to where she was. However, I can not (for some reason) click on her and try to buy anything from her. So, my question is, how the heck do you actually buy stuff from the special merchant? I spent the last 12 hours of my China trip following her around trying to buy stuff before the trip ended and I was thrust back home. Is there like a quest I have to do in order to buy stuff from them or a certain area they have to be in to buy stuff or what? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I believe that there is a social option called "Buy Items" that should be available just about any time. I had the option but not enough visa to purchase anything.

Maybe you have a mod conflict so the option isn't showing up?

I don't know. My visa is sitting on lvl 2 at the moment and I've got a ton of those coins. I actually had to remove a bunch of those mods that speed up learning things because my Sim would just stand there like a statue and do nothing. The only real mods I have at the moment are the Breast Sliders, some clothing stuff, and the mosiac thing. I just can't seem to click on her. It won't give me any options or anything, but I can click on other stuff (like Viewing the stuff at the market or buying things from the other merchants). Why I was wondering if there was like a special area or a special thing you have to do to unlock her.

Take out ALL your mods and try again. If the error doesn't replicate there is a good chance one of them is the culprit.

If you can interact with the merchant without any mods in your game, you can start adding everything back in one item at a time to identify which one is the culprit. Perhaps tedious and time-consuming, but really the only way to know for sure.

I did as suggested. Turned out it was a mod I picked up awhile back for a Legacy contest on another forum. It was one that allowed for relationships between family members. Once I pulled it, I was able to click on people once again and have options come up. So stupid that one little mod can mess up an entire game, but there you have it. Thanks for the help, James009 & freelancergal.

I'm glad it was an easy fix! :O)

I've been playing Shang Simla for a while now and have been having the same problem as the person above (can't click on Special Merchant to buy anything). In addition to that problem, I cannot click on myself to use my cell phone while in Shang Simla (I had to go into Edit Town and place a phone on a lot and then go back into the game to use it). Also, when I click on another Sim and "greet" him/her, after the initial greet I cannot click on that person to choose any further interactions. I am at the point where I need to compete with the Master Sim Fu champion guy. I called him up, chose "Yes" to challenge him, he came over to me and all I could do was greet him and then we just stood around until he ran away. I read above that someone suggested removing mods. I don't think I have any mods in my game, but if someone would remind me 1) what are mods?, 2) where are they located in the files? and 3) how do I remove them?, I would be eternally grateful!

THank you!

mods are game modifications. they are usually package files and are located in the documents/electronic arts/the sims 3/mods/packages folder.

What she said.



Most mods can be removed simply by moving/deleting them from the mods/packages folder. However, if they are in the mods/overrides folder, then they have replaced an important core feature of your game and can only be removed by uninstalling your game and reinstalling it after removing the override from its folder. Removing an override without reinstalling will most likely corrupt your game. If you do not find a mods folder in your sims 3 folder, then you have not installed any mods and your game has somehow glitched by some other means. The mods folder needs to be created manually before any mods can be installed.

Huh? Where did you get that information from? Is that another one of those advices that a certain Simmer at the official forum dishes out by the dozens? When you remove a mod, it's gone. It may leave traces in your Saves but not in the Program files. No need to reinstall. I think every OS would give you warnings galore if some file in Documents wanted to access and change Program files, unless it's a virus.

I concur- what chreai said is incorrect.

Although it is true that some mods need 'uninstalling'- for example, Twallan's Story Progression requires a town reset before removal, or else it could cause problems with the current savegame. Removing mods incorrectly certainly won't damage your game install, though.