You actually don't even need to pause the game as long as it's never running when the computer's system clock is "wrong." In other words, if the system clock changes are all done when the game is not running, and you always set the clock to the correct time before you launch VV, it will be fine.

this is the first time I am not time warping and the game is working out much better. i [censored] up so many things with my first village, time warping, that I had to kill them all.

Yesterday my daughter wanted to show me something on the April Calendar so she had me bring up the computer's system calendar. She showed me the days in April that she wanted me to see and then without thinking I just hit "OKAY" and my villagers all died! I had no idea what happened and then I remembered the posts I had read about "time warping" and I was really upset because it was not intentional. I went and changed the system clock back to the proper date but it was too late, my village was gone. It was my 2nd one and I had just started it the day before, but I was still upset to have lost all that I had. My question is now that I've started over will it affect that particular village? I seem to be gaining tech points extremely slow and not very many collectables are showing up. Is there an adverse effect to what happened?
Thanks!

Bethie - that's rough!

But no, as long as your system clock stays constant, your new village won't have been affected. Some villagers just seem to be slower than others, so keep pushing them and you'll get there.

LOL, no kidding! I was so upset and my daughter says to me "Mom, it's just a game!!" I know, I hear a collective *gasp* from all VV players! I'll keep plugging away.....Thanks for your response!

I actually "time travelled" on the first VV. So when I bought Lost Children, I figured, "Hey! Cool! I can whip through this and still have fun!" WRONG! After like the 5th time of having to restart I saw that it would not work this time. Not to mention, the sales manager asking me why customers weren't getting their quotes. Hmmm.... Oops! Darn Eudora didn't like me changing my clock. So I started playing the right way and it has really paid off. Not only do I have all but 2 collectible Butterflies and Shells and I'm not even a fourth of the way through the game but customers are getting their quotes! Woo-Hoo!! Happy gaming everyone!

I was trying to time travel, lost 5 groups. Learned my lesson, letting things go naturally, can't play all the time with my 2 small kids (3 and 1) around, they need me to! Like being Mommy to 2 different families!!

Personally to keep the urge to time warp away, I just run at least two villages....between all the collectables, things to do, and stubborn villagers, I find that there is no "lull" that makes me even want to temp fate.

Great post, VM. I love the games and can't figure the wanting to rush through.

I had to abandon 1 of my villages that had 1 gong piece left to solve. I was debugging some program and i needed to change the system date. And I totally forgot to pause my game.

So there I was warping through time like Marty McFly and ended up with 5 mothers that will continue to nurse while their babies are going their midlife crises and crops that are ready for harvest when VV3 is released!

What a disaster!