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Scholar
#101 Old 11th Apr 2010 at 6:44 AM
Elvie, I believe that's a user-specific problem. I'm sure there have been plenty of people who have generated new 'hoods with their downloads folder installed, and I've never heard of that problem. Not in my whole year of monitoring MATY or the stupid questions thread/game help forum.

I know I'm definitely one of them.
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Instructor
#102 Old 11th Apr 2010 at 7:47 AM
Wasn't there some issue with saving while a Sim was talking on a cell phone? Or did that get fixed?

Also, I no longer recall which EP fixed it (NL? OFB?) but with the base game and a few of the early EP's, there's a fairly low limit to how many Sims a neighborhood can safely contain before it starts going buggy. I believe it's about 800 or thereabouts?

Also: as well as not moving occupied houses into and out of the bin or between neighborhoods, you should not install any packaged houses containing Sims for the same reasons. You can use the house if you strip the Sims out of it first with Clean Installer, though.
Site Helper
#103 Old 11th Apr 2010 at 12:50 PM
I've generated several new 'hoods with my Downloads folder intact because my husband and I have different play styles, and the neighborhood kids have their own game as well. So I have 2 hoods of my own, my husband has 2, we share one, and the kids play one. The only problems we have had with the secret lots were things like a sim not being able to get into the restroom because the design was stupid. (And long loading times due to too much CC in general, but that's not a problem confined to the secret lots.)

I am Ghost. My husband is sidneydoj. I post, he downloads, and I wanted to keep my post count.
Group for Avatar Makers* Funny Stories *2017 Yearbook
#104 Old 12th Apr 2010 at 5:54 PM
Nor have I had such problems, or --to the best of my recollection-- heard of such previously.

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Lab Assistant
#105 Old 20th May 2010 at 12:59 AM
Ok, a dumb question from me (I ask, because now I am not really sure what is safe to do in the game). So, is it ok to delete some snapshots from the storytelling folders? Or at least to delete thumbnails while keeping snapshots?
Inventor
#106 Old 20th May 2010 at 2:42 AM
Quote: Originally posted by Elvie
Ok, a dumb question from me (I ask, because now I am not really sure what is safe to do in the game). So, is it ok to delete some snapshots from the storytelling folders? Or at least to delete thumbnails while keeping snapshots?


Absolutely. I assume you're talking about the snapshots in the Neighbourhoods/Storytelling folder. You can do whatever you want with them... delete them, copy them somewhere else. I've never really seen the point of the thumbnails so delete them immediately.

I tend to move snapshots to a different hard drive and categorise all my pics according to families. I also tend to take a lot of movies which can really bulk up your Movies folder with unnecessary gigabytes if you record larger movies, so I transfer those over to the other hard drive too.
Lab Assistant
#107 Old 20th May 2010 at 11:42 AM
Thanks for the answer, jodemilo.
I like to take pics of the houses I build, interriors and 'hood lanscapes, so, my Storytelling folders are HUGE and I thought it would be a good idea to sort tha pics and to move them off the Storytelling folder. As for thumbnails, I find those tiny pics useless, too, and I used to delete them, but after I learned that deleting things can be so dangerous, though easy (like deleting genetics and sims from sim-bin), i became very conscious about deleting anything.
Inventor
#108 Old 27th May 2010 at 7:58 PM
Another thing that I've learned (the hard way, unfortunately ), is to NEVER play the Ottomas family (the huge one that came with seasons) or even put them in your game at all. The files for that family are so corrupt that even just keeping them in the sim bin without ever playing them will still bork your neighborhood (since they apparently get brought home from work by other sims).
Also, apparently letting ANY NPCs die (especially by things like fire) is a Very Bad Thing, as is apparently using the little in-game trash can icon to delete even CC from either the game or body shop. Deleting Maxis-made stuff which, through various hacks or migrations or whatever has ended up with a CC star, will DEFINATELY corrupt things, and I've begun to have my doubts about whether using the trash can on CC is safe. Just to be safe, I stopped using the thing altogether and just deleted CC, Hoods, and other things directly from the downloads/neighborhood folders (which is yet another reason why you should always keep your downloads folder organised).
I'd say that yet another thing would be using the Maxis-made system of installing things, rather than Clean Installer, since apparently the Maxis one can be a bit vacum-like at times, and you may end up with something you don't want (or could break your game) without you realising it, whereas with Clean Installer, you can scroll through and see what you're getting.


In all honesty, even after doing a lot of searching about stuff like this, I STILL get astounded from time to time at EA/Maxis's level of incompetence where this game is concerned.
Field Researcher
#109 Old 28th May 2010 at 2:26 AM
I thought that the patch repaired the Ottomas. Is that not true? It's only the pregnancy that is corrupted anyway right? Because in my game they're all dead except Tommy.
Instructor
#110 Old 28th May 2010 at 5:54 PM
Yes, the BV patch is supposed to have assigned a father to the buggy twins. I have the Ottomas family in my game, and have been playing them--seems to be okay. But geez(!) those twins are UG-LY. Aged 'em up to adult, fixed them with the plastic surgery machine, and back down to toddlers and they are STILL fugly. No chin, gaping black holes for noses. WHAT happened to them? I've been thinking that family needs to take a long walk through my cowplant garden.
Test Subject
#111 Old 28th May 2010 at 10:44 PM Last edited by fadeh : 29th May 2010 at 1:48 AM.
Could somebody explain to me in basic, noob, step-by-step terms how to reset my count thing? I've never used SimsPE before and that link was difficult for me to understand. I've worked hard on my neighborhood, though, and I don't want to lose it because I deleted the bin sims that came with it.

EDIT:

Also a question. If I make a new neighborhood and immediately delete every sim in the bin, and create new sims after I do that, would that avoid the problem? They would have all been deleted before any of my sims had come about.
Field Researcher
#112 Old 29th May 2010 at 2:45 AM
I hate them too. I never played them and I got really sick of see the eternally pregnant mom around the neighborhood. She seemed to pop up everywhere. Recently, almost all my premade playable families died in a wave of sudden accidents. It was very, very tragic.


Fadeh, if you want to create a new neighborhood without any premade sims, you need to get the clean templates over at moreawesomethanyou.com/smf.
Test Subject
#113 Old 29th May 2010 at 3:03 AM Last edited by fadeh : 29th May 2010 at 3:17 AM.
I tried that, but it won't let me extract them. I think I borked it with my own stupidity. I also don't want to lose my old neighborhood, which I grew very attached to. I can't understand the instructions for the deleter.

EDIT:
Yeah, just me being stupid as usual. Ignore.
#114 Old 3rd Jun 2010 at 9:44 PM
I`ve recently learned another non-intuitive thing to NOT do in a Sims game:

Do NOT use the BatBox`s option to fix stuck tans & burns and such on a lot that has a Servo present. Doing so causes the Sim`s invisible face to become visible in the Sim`s thumbnail pictures and in the family`s Loading Screen picture, although the Sims still looks fine "in person". Alas, I have no idea how to undo the damage it does.

Apparently Servos use the same overlay system as the tans and sunburns from Seasons do. Oddly enough, it appears that PlantSims, Sasquatch, and Wherewolves also use the same overlay technology, so it might be a good idea to avoid using that function on lots containing them, too.

I believe that this applies to lots where these types are VISITORS as well as the lots where they reside, and as Sims on the telephone with your resident Sim are considered to be present on the lot even though they are "off-world", this function also shouldn`t be used when one of them is being telephoned!

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Test Subject
#115 Old 7th Jun 2010 at 8:48 PM
I don't know if it has already been said, but i would say: Don't play on the biggest lots. I can't do anything because iiiiiit....iiiis... slooooo..wiiing..my...gaaaame....
I just hate it.

"For the world, you are somebody
But for somebody, you are the world."

I'm just a girl, and friends call me Steph :).
#116 Old 9th Jun 2010 at 7:58 PM
I actually *PREFER* the bigger lots! I`m often using Mootilda`s LotAdjuster to make lots *bigger*, especially corner lots, where I add the side road to the lot. I then use the Buyable Portals [I forget who made them and what thread they`re in] to add pedestrian portals not only on the far side of the street, but also on both sides and both ends of the new road.

On the other hand, I *do* have a fairly decent computer to run things on. It only takes me about 15 minutes or so to go from Launch Game to Live Mode because I have such a HUGE amount of CC installed.

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Scholar
#117 Old 9th Jun 2010 at 8:30 PM
GOD: What about werewolves in their human state? Would that change them also? Thanks for the tip by the way. I try to keep supernatural sims in their own houses anyways, so I wouldn't have to worry about that, except for Sasquatch.

I wish there could be bigger lots. I mean, there's barely any room even on the big lots. I tried to build my school once and could only fit one hallway, the gym, and the auditorium. Ugh.

"Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so."
- Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)
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#118 Old 11th Jun 2010 at 7:33 PM
Kailacat, I have no idea, as I have yet to achieve a werewolf [I misspelled it last time. ] either by standard methods or by cheating [I want to get the first one "honestly", and I won`t *need* to cheat to get more once I have one available to "savage" other Sims!]. If I had to venture an "educated guess", I`d say that it is probably OK, but I`d want to *test* it out on a "guinea pig" Sim in my Testing Neighborhood first, now that I know of the issue.
***
Also a correction to my Larger Lots post above: It takes about five minutes [or less] to go from Launch Game to Live Mode with *no* CC, and about TWENTY *with* CC [even with the CC disabled]. I think it would have been even longer on my previous computer. I don`t have much CC, do I?

P.S.: You`re welcome for the tip.

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Test Subject
#119 Old 12th Jun 2010 at 2:09 AM
I had something odd happen in my game with giving the dog a bath. I sent the whole family on an outing without the dog and one of the sims was in the middle of giving the dog a bath when the taxi showed up and he left the dog in the tub. When they got back home, the dog was stuck in the tub. There were no interactions available when I clicked on the dog and, since it was a pet, I couldn't cancel any actions from the dog's cue. I have no idea what fixed it, but after I had packed up almost everything my sims owned into their inventory in preparation to move the family out in hopes that the dog would be saved, the dog was somehow unstuck and got out of the tub on his own. Very weird.

I've never deleted the pre-made families from the bin. I don't use them at all myself, but I did once empty the family bin by putting them all in the neighborhood for one of my kids. Is there any way to delete a pre-made family or is killing them off the best way? And what's the best way to create such accidents so that won't cause problems?

Does that apply to custom made sims as well? I once created a family and deleted it later because I realized I had made a mistake with one of the family members. At the time I thought it would be best to just delete the whole family and start over because you can't change genetics in game. But the new family I created kept running into themselves or other members from the family I deleted any time they went downtown or shopping, etc... I didn't see any other problems, but I ended up resetting the whole neighborhood because it was annoying me. Currently, my youngest son has made several families for his game - different computer from mine - and I was planning to delete them because he wasn't supposed to make so many on his own without me or his brother supervising. What is the best way to get rid of unwanted custom sims?
Beautiful Dinosaur
#120 Old 12th Jun 2010 at 9:25 AM
Quote: Originally posted by meesha1971
Currently, my youngest son has made several families for his game - different computer from mine - and I was planning to delete them because he wasn't supposed to make so many on his own without me or his brother supervising. What is the best way to get rid of unwanted custom sims?


Probably the safest way would be to move them into a house and kill them off, either age them all up or find funnier ways to do them in Definitely don't just delete them, unless you are familiar with SimPE (I think you can then delete the connections they will have created in the hood). I don't know Sim PE at all so I'm not sure though.

Who knows where thoughts come from....? They just appear.
Test Subject
#121 Old 12th Jun 2010 at 2:48 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Bellasaurus
Probably the safest way would be to move them into a house and kill them off, either age them all up or find funnier ways to do them in Definitely don't just delete them, unless you are familiar with SimPE (I think you can then delete the connections they will have created in the hood). I don't know Sim PE at all so I'm not sure though.


That's what I thought the answer would be. At this point, I'm thinking my best bet is probably to go ahead and reset all the hoods and start over since I just recently reinstalled everything and none of us are too far along in our games. I'm still in "testing" mode for CC that I've diligently replaced after accidentally deleting my downloads folder and my husband and kids haven't done much more than creating families and houses/lots.

Two questions that I hope someone can answer. One - I have at least one lot that I downloaded that is inhabited by sims made by the lot creator. I don't recall downloading that lot and I think it may have been one of the old sims2pack files that survived my accidental deletion - after reading this thread, I'm thinking that "accident" was an act of God to save my game because I was definitely headed for a crash. Is it safe to delete that lot from the lot bin in the game since I have never put it in any hood or played it? I was going to delete it with Clean Installer, but it looked like the sims were separate files and I don't want any remnants or pieces left behind.

Two - I like the sound of having clean templates for all the hoods, but the tutorial on MATY was last updated for Seasons - though there is a thread with downloads for clean templates for all the EP's through AL. Is there a more recent tutorial for creating clean templates and spawning/creating NPC sims that includes AL? I don't want to bork my game if any of the coding changed between Seasons and AL. And they don't mention the stuff packs. I have all of the EP's and stuff packs so I want to be sure I get the right files.

Thanks
Scholar
#122 Old 12th Jun 2010 at 2:55 PM
Quote: Originally posted by meesha1971
Two - I like the sound of having clean templates for all the hoods, but the tutorial on MATY was last updated for Seasons - though there is a thread with downloads for clean templates for all the EP's through AL. Is there a more recent tutorial for creating clean templates and spawning/creating NPC sims that includes AL? I don't want to bork my game if any of the coding changed between Seasons and AL. And they don't mention the stuff packs. I have all of the EP's and stuff packs so I want to be sure I get the right files.

Thanks


Well this link is updated through BV but it does contain links for empty/clean templates for FT and AL you just follow the same instructions as for the others.

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/s...ic,10798.0.html

One thing I've noticed is the link for the empty templates for Strangetown and Veronaville is not valid. You can get the cleaned ones but I haven't been able to find the empty ones.

Fabulous things empty templates.
Test Subject
#123 Old 13th Jun 2010 at 4:32 AM
Quote: Originally posted by Clashfan
Well this link is updated through BV but it does contain links for empty/clean templates for FT and AL you just follow the same instructions as for the others.

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/s...ic,10798.0.html

One thing I've noticed is the link for the empty templates for Strangetown and Veronaville is not valid. You can get the cleaned ones but I haven't been able to find the empty ones.

Fabulous things empty templates.


I trawled through the thread and found a working download link for the empty templates for Strangetown and Veronaville. What I have not been able to find is a cleaned template for Seasons. I found the empty template.

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/s....html#msg211443

Clean hoods versus empty - if I understand that correctly, the clean hoods keep the families already placed in lots and the sim bin is empty while the empty hoods have no sims at all - except for NPC sims like the nanny that will be generated as needed. Clean hoods would work best for my husband and kids - no way they will take the time to create or spawn a bunch of townies. I'm not sure for my game - I typically do a highly customized HP game with witches and wizards, but I like to have some "muggles" as well. Could I spawn some generic townies as well as create my own unique townies with an empty hood?

The tutorial is very vague about what to do with the base game hoods - it just says to rename N001. For all the other EP's, it says to delete the character folders as well as the package files for the Maxis hoods and then replace the package files with the downloaded clean/empty hoods. One goes further with instructions to delete the storytelling and thumbnail folders as well - I presume that if I choose to use the empty hoods. Should I delete the character folders and package files for the base game hoods and replace them as well? That is what is indicated by the inclusion of clean/empty files for those hoods. If I'm understanding it correctly, I need to go through and delete the character folders and hood package file for the base game and every EP I have and replace each one with the cleaned/emptied character folders and hood package files - and the storytelling and thumbnail folders if I want to do completely empty hoods with no sims at all.
Scholar
#124 Old 13th Jun 2010 at 6:15 AM
Quote: Originally posted by meesha1971
I trawled through the thread and found a working download link for the empty templates for Strangetown and Veronaville.

Clean hoods versus empty - if I understand that correctly, the clean hoods keep the families already placed in lots and the sim bin is empty while the empty hoods have no sims at all - except for NPC sims like the nanny that will be generated as needed.

The tutorial is very vague about what to do with the base game hoods - it just says to rename N001. all.


First of all huge thank you for posting that link! I swear I trawled that thread and several others looking for those empty templates. I've only seen an empty template for Seasons not sure if there is a clean one. It might have been to messed up to make clean.

As for the difference between them your pretty right on except there are a few Sims in the bin. If they had connections to anyone they are not gone in the cleaned hoods. I wanted to add new face templates as well as names so I went the empty route.

It is a lot of work depending on how many EP's and how many townies you end up needing. If you look at the instructions there is a way to "batch" create townies and downtownies. This will get you new and different ones but they can still end up in crazy clothes, makeup, hair.
It is certainly a short cut though as it takes about 10 minutes to create roughly 60 Sims.

Batch creating does not work for the University students or at least I couldn't figure out a way to make it work. You also need more of them, roughly around 40, and you need to designate some of them into the secret society. NPC's are generated as needed. If you have the hacks that are listed specifically "antiredundancy" it will only create one NPC of each kind. Meaning you end up with just one nanny, maid, barista, bartender ect as opposed to 3 of each. If one of them dies the game generates a new one.

As for the renaming I didn't do that. I saved the original neighborhood files intact to my desktop in case I need them again. Then I just overrode the appropriate templates with the empty ones.

Hope that helps and thanks again for that link I've really been wanting those.
Test Subject
#125 Old 13th Jun 2010 at 8:58 AM
Quote: Originally posted by Clashfan
First of all huge thank you for posting that link! I swear I trawled that thread and several others looking for those empty templates. I've only seen an empty template for Seasons not sure if there is a clean one. It might have been to messed up to make clean.

As for the difference between them your pretty right on except there are a few Sims in the bin. If they had connections to anyone they are not gone in the cleaned hoods. I wanted to add new face templates as well as names so I went the empty route.

It is a lot of work depending on how many EP's and how many townies you end up needing. If you look at the instructions there is a way to "batch" create townies and downtownies. This will get you new and different ones but they can still end up in crazy clothes, makeup, hair.
It is certainly a short cut though as it takes about 10 minutes to create roughly 60 Sims.

Batch creating does not work for the University students or at least I couldn't figure out a way to make it work. You also need more of them, roughly around 40, and you need to designate some of them into the secret society. NPC's are generated as needed. If you have the hacks that are listed specifically "antiredundancy" it will only create one NPC of each kind. Meaning you end up with just one nanny, maid, barista, bartender ect as opposed to 3 of each. If one of them dies the game generates a new one.

As for the renaming I didn't do that. I saved the original neighborhood files intact to my desktop in case I need them again. Then I just overrode the appropriate templates with the empty ones.

Hope that helps and thanks again for that link I've really been wanting those.


You're welcome and thank you for the advice. I'm making a "to do" list or myself since the most recent tutorial I can find stops at BV. Some of the working links have included instructions as well. That's been helpful.

I haven't gotten around to reading all the instructions for the hacks and generating townies, dormies, etc... I'm still looking for clean/empty hood templates - two more EP's to go - and reading through the thread for any reports on potential problems, tips on how to proceed, etc... I need to find an empty lot for Seasons - G001. I got the one for G002, but the link for G001 was no longer valid. There are quite a few broken links there - looks like that hasn't been updated in a while.
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