EA What is Up!?!? Sims 3 World Adventures, and the Error Code 16

Yesterday was a perfect day... and yes I am being extremely sarcastic when I say this, but in order to understand this frustration, let me rewind back to June 2009.

I bought the Sims 3. Initially it was going to be available months earlier, but the release date got pushed back till June. June arrived, and my Sims 3 game ran flawlessly without a glitch. I'm such a Sim fanatic that I actually purchased a $2,000 gaming rig from Dell, to be ensured that this game would run without a hiccup. My dream machine handled the game with lightning speeds, and all was well in Sunset Valley.

Let's fast forward to November 17th, 2009. The official release date of the very first expansion pack for my Sims 3 PC game.

I, like millions of other Sims fans waited, and waited, and watched the numerous videos that EA released to us. They got us all pumped up for this expansion pack, World Adventures.
 
Like the fanatic I am, I went out and bought the game.

I installed the game, and all was well. I even noticed that EA recently added an update/patch for the game. Since I never had any issues with patches for the game, I went ahead and installed it.

Before playing my game, I went online and redeemed the free $10 Sim Points that came included with the game.

After all was said and done, I finally ran the game. Load up times were a bit longer than what I was used to, but I figured the new expansion pack slowed things up a bit. Normally things were lightning fast. The slow load time though didn't upset me much, the events that spewed out shortly afterward though did.

I went ahead playing my game as I normally would. Went into my Sim Laura's inventory, got out her cell phone and decided to send her on vacation to see what this new expansion pack had to offer.
I chose China as her 3 day destination vacation.

Laura traveled to China. There was a load time, and waiting did not bother me, but it was slightly long. If you have a slower running PC, the wait time will likely be excruciating.

Once China loaded up, I was able to control Laura through China. I sent her on fun adventures, on treasure hunts, digging for relics and solving puzzles.

All was going beautifully until the vacation came to an end.

Once my 3 day vacation was up, there was no taxi ride home or anything of that nature that you likely remember from the Sims 2.
The screen simply launches you back
to your hometown. In my case, Sunset Valley.

Once home, I went through Laura's inventory and began placing relics and finds I had scooped up along my adventure in China.

Then it was time for bed, in real life that is.

I went to save the game as I normally would. I immediately noticed that saving was taking a hell of a lot longer than it normally did. About a minute into waiting for the game to save, up pops a blue box stating that the games save was interrupted due to error code 16, and that I needed to refer to the readme file.
Well what the hell?

The readme file didn't help me at all.

I tried saving again, and again, and again, times ten. Finally I got fed up and just exited the game without saving it.

I loaded the game back up again, to see how much progress I lost. My last in game save that did work took place in China.

However when the games main menu loaded up, and I noted that Sunset Valley was gone. My Laura Sim was also gone. I clicked on the box anyway. The box said Sunset Valley, only the little family photo/house that is usually inside of the box was missing.

After clicking the box that read Sunset Valley, the game launched me over to China. However I had no Sim to control, and I had no way to save the game in China as the game would not allow me to save.
I was however able to scroll around China to look at it. Only I could not interact with it. My Sim was gone. I had a blank tool bar.

I decided to click edit town. I was able to go back to edit Sunset Valley, my town thankfully is still there. Only I have no way to play it, nor can I save, or send my Sim back to the town, seeing that she is now lost somewhere in China...only I cannot see her.

Basically Sunset Valley is gone, yet it still exists. I just have no clue how to get there. The SAVE AS feature that others are mentioning sounds helpful, but it means nothing if you do not even have a save button as an option anymore, like I do.

I decided to say screw it, and I went back to the main menu. Riverview is still there, and is still playable without problems. However I am afraid to send my Sims on vacation again, in fear of the error code 16 pop up.

It's a real slap in the face to fans who were expecting this game, and the patch to fix old problems, only to have it completely wreck towns we've worked on for months.

EA owes those of us who purchased the game a full refund, or an immediate fix. This is simply unacceptable, and I am not the only one having this problem. A google search of error code 16, and the Sims 3 will pull up forums with people moaning about the same thing.

It honestly makes you wonder if they even tested the game before releasing it. I have never ever before had a problem with the game, till I got the expansion pack and the patch/update.

As of now months of work that went into Sunset Valley is useless.