Do you ever just get that random urge to restare your whole game, I know I do. Mabey your sim has alot of bad memories or you just feel like you HAVE to restart (ocd in my case). Have you experinced this?

YES!! I can't believe you just posted this. I've recently been thinking about doing just that because of boredom actually. I miss "the old days" of Brandi Broke's crazy life (she's now rich and has good relationships with all of her boys...boring!), the early days of the Pleasant twin's fights and their parents issues (both are dead now). But then I think about how much work I've put into the neighborhoods and building my CC so I just find other ways to keep it interesting.

The only time I had a "re-start" was when my game crashed. After a few moments of utter frustration I just started over and actually had a blast.

I know right. Don and Nina are now engaged in my game and she's a famous dancer and he's a rich doctor. BORING! I liked it beter when they were struggling and were just starting out.

What I do when I feel like restarting Strangetown from zero (because I love the sims that originally come with it) is keep backups of both the "old and long played" one and the "new and reset" one, and put the one I wanna play that day in the Neighborhoods directory before loading the game. But my game loads pretty fast (I don't use any cc other than hacks and hair), so I can deal with quitting and reloading if I wanna change between them.

Another thing you can do if you don't wanna lose all the progress you've made is make a new user account in your computer and start the game over in that other account. That way you can keep the long running hoods you have in one account, and start them over from scratch in the other one.

I do that, as well. I've kept backups of my original neighborhoods with the progress of time so that if I'm really bored or tired of the way it's going, I can just reload them into the game and start over. Of course getting more CC is helpful as well, and even more importantly, more EP's.
I'm still amazed that my game works as well as it does, having gone through so many incarnations through the past 3 years.

Yeah, but mainly because of boredom.

Do it all the time. I'm fighting the urge now - Pleasantview's come too far for me to kill it now!

I do this all the time, I never managed to reach my "goal" with any neighborhood. I just start feeling like something is missing and get inspired to make something different so I start a new and empty hood, completely forsaking the old one. I just did it a few days ago, in fact.

And every time I think "Ok this one is going to be THE ONE" :D

yes generally in the second or third generation but it is do to my play style...and that is changing since I have started reading forums. Then there are times I day dream of building a custom hood such as a tropical island or such, build a few lots and think darn, I just should have stuck with the pre made. I think I will do what is suggested about doing the backup and stash, I have an ex-drive that could hold it indefinitely. That sounds like an easy project for later this eve.

I'm in the minority. My hood has been going for four years and nooooooooooo desire to restart. Ugh.

Never restart. And lose all that work? No way.

I love a fresh 'hood. I start all my neighborhoods prosperity-style, so a fresh start means coming up with new stories and rules for these new families, and seeing how they interact, with the neighborhood's whole future in front of them. But I'm devoted to my long-running neighborhood, so the only time I get to start fresh is when I need to test a new hack. The test neighborhoods get archived, but it's unlikely I'll ever revive any of them.

Only restarted due to having done pretty much everything you aren't supposed to do. "Why don't I just delete those Sims I never use?" "Hey what's this option on this hacked item do?". "Why don't I just kill off all those ugly townies and then delete their headstones?" (and oh so many others...)

Major BFBVFS. No option but to just start all over, although it is a fine option to make use of things like default skins ect that now affect the townies. The biggest pain for me is having to rebuild all the lots I lost.

My new mantra is "I will back up my game once a week". :D

I back up my game after EVERY play session. Saved my bacon more than once.

No. I "try" to play legacys and I always end up attached to my ingame bred sims. So I feel bad about restarting. I normally have to though as my game always goes wonky ^_^

I've never messed with the Maxis Sims. XD. It just never felt right. I wanted them to stay the way they were forever. That was until I got the Mega-Hood and now, because I can simply delete it then install it again, am having a blast playing the Dreamers with Bianca Monty and Darren having a nice lovey dovey thing, not married thank goodness, and dirk throwing fits because I failed at getting him in to a privet school. XD. But yes, I've felt that urge many times and in my early years (is there even a thing like that?) of playing Sims 2, I uninstalled every thing and installed it again, and I've done that a couple of times. XD. Well, you got a answer from the un-famous Refox_14 (My user name is a complete typo... I'm full of fail.)

I have that urge too, many times. There's something fascinating about freshly installed game But since I love so many cc's, I just can't restart ALL over again. But I do reset the hoods quite often. In fact, I have several of them... Like two or three Pleasantview's etc. But I do play them differently. So I have 3 different The Sims 2-files, one is for Maxis-playstyle, one for CC and one for my old hood's that I want to keep for "memory value" (but I don't play them regularly anymore).

Oh yes, definitely had that urge. I think I created a topic similar to this one actually when I was considering it. I wanted to start anew for similar reasons to Clashfan; doing stuff to the game that I later realised was bad, I was also bored with my NHs and needed to clear out a load of CC. So I saved all the stuff I wanted to keep - which wasn't much, actually ended up redownloading all the CC I wanted - and reinstalled, then I started a custom hood. Felt good actually. At least you can always keep a backup if you do decide to just start again, then if you regret it you can just pop your backup back in.

When my Pleasantville kept deleting random Sims, I posted and asked around, and found that unfortunately, my Pleasantview was borked, and the only real solution was to reset it. I thought I would live with the problem, and did for a short while, but then decided one day that forget it ... I would just reset.

I backed up the old file, just in case I missed my old characters, emptied out my favorite houses that I made and packaged them, and restarted. This was back in September of last year. I've yet to miss the old neighborhood, and actually, it's nice to be able to no longer be reminded of my old mistakes. Pleasantview my very first town that I played, and like some here, I did so many stupid things, like delete liberally from the Sim Bin. It's a miracle my first town lasted for three years.

I like my new Pleasantview, like my new Sims, but I don't rule out resetting again if I had to. Just back up your old files in case you change your mind after you reset/reinstall.

When I get bored or stuck with a neighbourhood, I switch to another saved game. Since so much time and effort is put into each neigbourhood, I don't restart unless I feel it's going to explode. I've been playing the same Pleasantview for more than four years, it's the only game I didn't restart, but Veronaville, Strangetown, Belladonna Cave got reset at least once, in some cases twice. My custom 'hoods were started from scratch at least twice as well. There's that strong attachment to Sims I play for a long time, that restarting the game really feels like killing them.

I am here right now, trying to get motivated to start a new town. I deleted all my Sims, CC, and towns with the intention of devoting my time to TS3...*sigh*

I love a fresh, clean town. Maybe I'll start a new Legacy as soon as Spring Break gets here (stares at the clock...counting the days...)

^ if you have to force yourself into motivation to play TS2, why don't you just drop it and play TS3? No one's forced to make the switch if they don't like TS3, but no one's forced to keep playing both if they're not feeling TS2 anymore either.

I am craving a fresh start right now, because there are some families I didn't play properly with and I rushed through their lives. *sigh*

Since the entire 'hood I have been playing for two years now is populated by Sims I, or other players, have made, which took me around two months to complete its whole setting from scratch, it would be crazy to even let the idea of "fresh start" cross my mind. Besides, when there is a rare ocassion I get bored with normal play there is always a Sim I dislike to keep me entertained by ruining her/his life.

After reading this thread... But I haven't really done much in my neighborhoods.