Pleasantview, Strangetown & Veronaville Project [UPDATED]

[SaraMK]

As another template for what? You mean like to have two Downtown templates to choose from all the time? Or just to replace Downtown or OFB temporarily so you can attach Riverblossom to another neighborhood as a sub-hood?


As far as the binned families....

Seasons gave us two neighborhoods. One is the Riverblossom neighborhood (G001) that can now be selected from the Neighborhood selection screen (a completely self-contained neighborhood like Pleasantview etc.). The other one is a "stealth" sub-hood (G002) that gets attached automatically to each of your neighborhoods. This stealth sub-hood has no lots, and no sims except the two binned families.

The stealth sub-hood is the one that has the binned families. The real Riverblossom does not have them. It only gets them after G002 gets attached to it, just like it gets attached to every neighborhood.

I have no idea how you ended up with two copies of the families, unless you pulled the G001 "template" from My Documents instead of from Program Files. The binned families do not reside in the G001 neighborhood, they reside in G002, like I said. But, if you used the G001 neighborhood from My Docs, then the two families have been inserted into it from the G002 stealth sub-hood. Then G002 got attached again  to whatever neighborhood you were working with, and that's how you ended up with two copies of the families. If this is in fact the problem, then all you need to do to prevent it is to use the neighborhood from Program Files instead of the one from My Docs.

If none of this sounds like it makes sense, be more specific about what you did that caused the families to be duplicated.

[syberspunk]

As another template for what? You mean like to have two Downtown templates to choose from all the time? Or just to replace Downtown or OFB temporarily so you can attach Riverblossom to another neighborhood as a sub-hood?

I first attempted the former... that is, I placed G001 in the OFB neighborhood template area and renamed stuff to B002.  This did not work, obviously, because I already had Bluewater attached [I suspected the reason, and pretty much confirmed this when I read your other thread(s) this morning].

What I want to attempt, later tonight probably, is the latter: i.e. swap things out temporarily so I can attach Riverblossom to my Pleasantview with only a single copy of the binned families.


As far as the binned families....

Seasons gave us two neighborhoods. One is the Riverblossom neighborhood (G001) that can now be selected from the Neighborhood selection screen (a completely self-contained neighborhood like Pleasantview etc.). The other one is a "stealth" sub-hood (G002) that gets attached automatically to each of your neighborhoods. This stealth sub-hood has no lots, and no sims except the two binned families.

The stealth sub-hood is the one that has the binned families. The real Riverblossom does not have them. It only gets them after G002 gets attached to it, just like it gets attached to every neighborhood.

Those sneaky, stealthy bastards!!! Well... I guess that is sorta similar to how Pets "snuck" in the Critturs and other dude with dog families.

I have no idea how you ended up with two copies of the families, unless you pulled the G001 "template" from My Documents instead of from Program Files. The binned families do not reside in the G001 neighborhood, they reside in G002, like I said.

I kinda did things in a foggy haze the other night, so I don't remember for sure... but I think I was using the G001 from the Program Files folder.  I stuck that in the OFB templates folder, after renaming files to B002.  After my attempts failed, I just decided to give up for the night and futz around with other things.  Later, when I re-entered Pleasantview, I saw two copies of the Ottomans and the Ramaswamis.   I was confused and freaked out, thinking I borked my game (thankfully, I have several backups).  Anyhew, I finally realized I forgot to delete the B002 folder I had created.  Once I did that, things were fine.


Does the G001 folder contain G002 as a sub-folder?

Anyhew... I guess I'll things again tonight, and see what happens.  I'll be a tad more careful this time and use your method described in the how-to merge thread with your downtown example... but I'll use the OFB template instead.


Also... I posted a somewhat semi-related question about Uni templates and antiredundancy over here.  I dunno if you've bothered to try it, but I was just curious if I could use the empty/"clean" templates to add a 2nd and 3rd Uni, and if antiredundancy would prevent the generation of Uni NPCs per Uni.  I suppose I could just try it, and see what happens   But I was wondering if anyone already tried it or knew for sure, off hand, when those Uni NPCs get generated, and if having antiredundancy would actually prevent/limit them from being generated.

In that thread, apparently the game still needs 24 profs.  But I wasn't sure if anti-redundancy can prevent in-game generation after using "clean" templates.  It is my assumption/understanding that... without using empty/"clean" templates, each of those Uni hoods already comes with NPCs generated.  So... antiredundancy can't prevent them from being copied over.  But... if you have the empty/"clean" template installed, then I would imagine that adding a Uni would just add that as a sub-hood, and the NPCs should only be generated if necessary.  But since I already have an existing Uni hood, those quotas should already be met, no?  So I would hope that antiredundancy would prevent them from adding more profs, etc. Yes? No? Am I crazy? 


Ste

[SaraMK]

Those sneaky, stealthy bastards!!! Well... I guess that is sorta similar to how Pets "snuck" in the Critturs and other dude with dog families.

Yes, exactly the same.

Does the G001 folder contain G002 as a sub-folder[/b]?

Nope. They're two completely separate things.

The stelthy subhood is located at C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Seasons\TSData\Res\NeighborhoodTemplate

And the real Riverblossom is at C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Seasons\TSData\Res\UserData\Neighborhoods

In that thread, apparently the game still needs 24 profs.  But I wasn't sure if anti-redundancy can prevent in-game generation after using "clean" templates.  It is my assumption/understanding that... without using empty/"clean" templates, each of those Uni hoods already comes with NPCs generated.  So... antiredundancy can't prevent them from being copied over.  But... if you have the empty/"clean" template installed, then I would imagine that adding a Uni would just add that as a sub-hood, and the NPCs should only be generated if necessary.  But since I already have an existing Uni hood, those quotas should already be met, no?

No idea... I would hope it only needs 24 total and not 24 per Uni, but this is Maxis we're talking about.

Even with all the anti-redundancy/anti-respawn hacks, and with the empty templates, the game will still create 24 professors, so there doesn't seem to be any way around it.

Worse, it does NOT generate them "as needed." Professors are the only NPC's that the game insists on creating up-front. It creates them the first time you load a Uni, which will happen as soon as you attach a Uni, since the Uni neighborhood insists on loading itself after being created (another annoyance).


Here's a link to a post where I describe what happens (in terms of NPC's being generated) when you use the empty templates. http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=5861.msg208040#msg208040

[dragon_tfm]

really cool but i was wondering if maybe for the seasons edition for this you could make it not overight any of the base hoods?

[SaraMK]

really cool but i was wondering if maybe for the seasons edition for this you could make it not overight any of the base hoods?

This doesn't over-ride any of the base neighborhoods. You are supposed to create a new game set for the merged neighborhood, or use a renaming program to give it a new number so that you can add it to your existing game set.

[dragon_tfm]

ahh..i ended up renaming all the files anyways...by hand ugh  cant wait for the seasons one =]

[syberspunk]

I just wanted to post that your tutorial was awesome.  It totally worked.  A couple of things tho:

1) I noticed that with the newer "craptastic" version of SimPE, there is an option for the Number ID to "make unique"

I'm guessing this would be sufficient?  As long as the it has a unique id?  That way, you wouldn't have to pre-create the custom hoods.  You could just dump the template in, and click the "make unique" option.  Right?

2) The storytelling didn't get copied over.  I suppose that's obvious since it's not included in the template folder itself.  I had to figure out how to add that back.  Basically, I had to go in game, open up the story album stuff, and have it generate the .xml files as like place holders, for each hood and each household.  Then I copied over the pictures and .xml files from the Strangetown and Veronaville hood storytelling.  And then, I had to rename all the files with the corresponding placeholder.  I also had to edit the .xml files so that they pointed to the new/correct filenames.  I hope that makes sense.


Anyhew, I'm lookin forward to a clean template of Riverblossom Hills.   I'm just a greedy greedy fucker ain't I?  Well, appreciative fucker at least.

* syberspunk mashes the thanks ewe button repeatedly!  Baaaaaaaaa!!!

Ste

[SaraMK]

1) I noticed that with the newer "craptastic" version of SimPE, there is an option for the Number ID to "make unique"

That has always been in SimPE as far as I know, and does not work properly for this purpose. That's pretty much what I used before I called it quits and decided you need to rip out Number ID from a valid file.

However, remember that my method is the "safest," but you are not guaranteed to get glitches if you do it the easy way and just dump a template in. I've talked about the "one over the other" gltch before, and it seemed very common in testing (and from comments made by people who did something I cautioned against (added another Downtown)), so I'm satisfied that my method is the way to avoid that sort of glitch-potential.

The storytelling didn't get copied over.  I suppose that's obvious since it's not included in the template folder itself.  I had to figure out how to add that back.  Basically, I had to go in game, open up the story album stuff, and have it generate the .xml files as like place holders, for each hood and each household.  Then I copied over the pictures and .xml files from the Strangetown and Veronaville hood storytelling.  And then, I had to rename all the files with the corresponding placeholder.  I also had to edit the .xml files so that they pointed to the new/correct filenames.  I hope that makes sense.

Yeah, that part gets lost in the shuffle. Copying the xml files is what I did, too, as I'm not aware of any other method to do it (except to manually rebuild the albums...). I'm not sure why it happens, exactly, since if obviously the Maxis sub-hoods copy over their albums correctly. Probably the Number ID thing is at fault again.

[syberspunk]

That has always been in SimPE as far as I know, and does not work properly for this purpose. That's pretty much what I used before I called it quits and decided you need to rip out Number ID from a valid file.

However, remember that my method is the "safest," but you are not guaranteed to get glitches if you do it the easy way and just dump a template in. I've talked about the "one over the other" gltch before, and it seemed very common in testing (and from comments made by people who did something I cautioned against (added another Downtown)), so I'm satisfied that my method is the way to avoid that sort of glitch-potential.

Would you mind re-iterating again.  I think I read through your three threads here and although there are references to the things you mentioned, I didn't see any actual explanation.  I did use the OFB suburb template cuz of your warnings about Downtown, but I didn't find anything that explained why it was so bad.  I must have glossed over something.

Also... about the Number ID... well, I'm not sure... and I might have borked something... but originally, when I made my first attempt, I added custom OFB suburbs and extracted those INDO/IDNO? files.  I botched my initial attempt, and then when I realized I only had empty templates and not cleaned templates, I held off on that and decided to try to add the other Unis.  It seemed reasonable that, with your cleaned up Unis, and Pescado's hacks in place, I should theoretically be able to add them without generating too many profs.  I wanted to confirm that before I tried, and other peeps seemed to indicate it would be safe. 
That turned out successful and then I went back to adding Strangetown and Veronaville.

Since I was lazy, I didn't bother re-creating new OFB suburbs and thought I could just use the Number IDs I had previously extracted.  That appeared to work, but then I realized I had added those two other Unis, and so the numbers might collide.  The game seemed to load fine the first time around before I had realized there may be a potential conflict.  I re-opened the two new suburbs and that's when I noticed that 'make unique' button/link.  I clicked it, it changed them simply by incrementing them so that they were unique (did not conflict with the two Unis I added).  I poked around Strangetown and Veronaville, and then ended up having to fix the storytelling.  But as far as I could tell, they looked ok.  I suppose I should go back and check on the Unis and make sure that those subhoods didn't get fux0r3d.  I do have a backup, if I needed to start over, but hopefully I won't have to.

Yeah, that part gets lost in the shuffle. Copying the xml files is what I did, too, as I'm not aware of any other method to do it (except to manually rebuild the albums...). I'm not sure why it happens, exactly, since if obviously the Maxis sub-hoods copy over their albums correctly. Probably the Number ID thing is at fault again.

I'm not sure, but for me, just dumping the files in there didn't work.  I had to go to each 'hood and click on the story book thing.  Then click on the caption editing thing, which generated an .xml file in the Storytelling folder.  The default Strangetown webentry file thingie has '00000002' it in (00000003 for Veronaville).  My subhood Strangetown generated an .xml file with '00000013' in the name.  I then renamed all snapshot, thumbnail, and webentry .xml files from 02 -> 13.  I also went into the .xml files themselves, and did the same.  When I went back into the game, they showed up properly.

I don't think I even looked at the default storytelling for Bluewater Village, does it even have stories?

The other thing I noticed was that the Maxis stories didn't have captions.  I wasn't sure if that was the default (heh, see how much I play and how much I use the Maxis defaults?   But I plan to use them all now that I've added them into my game. Heh. ) or if I screwed it up.  I asked someone in chat, and they said that's how it is for them too... so I'm hoping that's the case.

Anyhew, thanks again so much for doing all the groundwork and coming up with these tutorials.  I now have like 800 sims in my game.  And I haven't even gotten through to the 2nd generation in ANY of them.  Hehe.  My game may very well go 'splodie into a great BFBVFS, but at least I know I can now regen the basehoods and start from scratch and what not.  I could reboot my hood again, but ugh, I don't want to have to start all over just yet.  I'll just run this hood into the ground.  And start over when it actually dies.  But for now, it probably won't be that big of an issue for me since my playstyle is so slow anyways.

Ste

[SaraMK]

The sub-hoods don't have stories for families, but they do have those picture/story things that pop up when you first enmter the subhood and tell you all about its features.

As far as I know the Maxis family albums did not have captions, but it has been a while since I looked.

The Number ID thing is actually very simple, it's just that actually making them unique is annoyingly complicated.

For a neighborhood to function, every sub-hood that's attached to it has to have a unique Number ID, and this also has to be a valid Number ID for the type of sub-hood it is (Downtown, etc).

SimPE apparently doesn't show you everything that needs to be changed to make the Number ID unique. I really gave this feature a fair shot, and still suffered glitches, so I'm just making the assumption that something is not quite right about it. This is why we need to rip it out of another file.

It does not matter where you rip Number ID out from, as long as it is valid (the same type of sub-hood) and as long as it will be unique for that neighborhood.

So this leads to the shuffle that I recommend preforming when merging neighborhoods. In order to fool the game into thinking that something is a template for a sub-hood, you need to import Number ID from a real template. That is, the Maxis template. But, if you then re-use that same Number ID to fool the game into thinking another neighborhood is a template, you are basically attaching a second sub-hood that has the same Number ID.

NORMALLY this can never happen in the game. The game makes each sub-hood unique when you attach it. The problem is this: We are fooling the game into adding a template more than once. As you know, normally you don't have the option to add the Maxis made sub-hoods more than once. We force it to allow this by removing the file that represents the attached subhood. This is one of the steps in the tutorial, right? You attach a sub-hood, then you remove the file that represents it, and this allow you to add the template again. This, I speculate, is what prevents the game from always correctly assigning unique Number IDs to each sub-hood. It can't check which ones are alredy used, since we removed them.

The way I chose to solve this is by then replacing the Number ID in the (successfully attached) sub-hoods with ones that are guaranteed to be unique. The simplest way, which is why I recommend it, is to make a dummy neighborhood and attach a whole bunch of sub-hoods to it, and then rip the Number IDs from those sub-hoods. They are guaranteed to be unique.

There are probably other ways to do this, but this is the way that I came up with, and it works.

So, as to your question, if you used the OFB template, you are now facing the same problem as with Downtown: it is not safe to add any more OFB sub-hoods to the merged neighborhood. However, you could fix this by adding the sub-hood and then replacing the Number ID with a unique one from a valid file. The safest way would be to use a dummy neighborhood and attach as many sub-hoods as you already have attached to the real one, plus one more for the one you want to attach, and then use those Number IDs to replace the Number ID in all sub-hoods (of that type). Which is basically what I wrote in the mini-tut that I gave you. Another way would be to make a dummy copy of your real neighborhood, attach another subhood to it, rip Number ID out of that, and then use the ripped out Number ID to replace the one in the new sub-hood that you willbe attaching. I gave those instructions to Flamingo, because I thought there was less SimPE work doing it that way, but you can see how the result is exactly the same.

I don't know if you are asking what the one-over-the-other bug is, so I'll just explain that. Basically it's a nasty little glitch where your neighborhood looks okay, but when you enter a lot you find yourself inside a lot in the wrong neighborhood, plus with some graphical glitches where the houses look like hybrids of two houses. After a while the neighborhood view becomes similarly corrupted as well. I suppose you could fix this glitch by replacing the Number IDs, though I have not tried.

The part where you wrote that you had added some Unis and were afraid there would be a problem... I don't think that is possible. Using my method of merging neighborhoods, as far as I know, the only thing you need to worry about is sub-hoods of the same type.

I don't think using SimPE's "make unique" feature would mess anything up. I just haven't found it to work properly for the purpose of making the game see two sub-hoods as separate entities, which is what you would think "make unique" is supposed to do. I really do wish it would work, because that would prevent us from doing about a billion things to make merged neighborhoods work. I might do more testing on it at some point.

Finally... if your neighborhood works fine, then you don't need to redo anything. You'd know if anything was wrong, since clicking on a lot and winding up in the wrong house in the wrong neighborhood is kind of a big clue.

[syberspunk]

Ahh I see.  And yes, I did want to know what the "one-over-the-other" glitch was.  I tried to search for that phrase, but only found two exact references at the time.  The post you had just made (before my last one) and in the first post of one of your 3 threads, but it didn't elaborate.  Anyways, thanks for the thorough and comprehensively written explanation.  I'm glad I followed your tutorial.  I tested the hoods last night, and it seems to be ok.  I'll have to check and go into the Uni hoods to see if I enter any of the wrong hoods.  But I went into Strangetown and Veronaville lots just fine, so I imagine I'm ok.


One last question, so when you are saying you can't add another OFB sub-hoods, you just mean that you can't go all willy nilly and just randomly add new sub-hoods.  That the only way to properly add sub-hoods now is to follow the tutorial, otherwise you might get screwed up Number IDs.  So... it's not that I shouldn't ever add a new Downtown at all.  It's just that, if I wanted to, I should carefully follow your tutorial to do so, right?

At first, I was under the impression that I couldn't add another Downtown ever.  From what I read, I inferred that there was something terribly wrong with Downtown, specifically, and that's why you recommended using the OFB template as the 1st method in this post:

If you want to add it to an existing merged neighborhood that has already been played, it's a little more complicated, since, remember, you cannot safely add another Downtown.

<snip>

METHOD 1: Use a different Sub-Hood type:  You can't use Downtown anymore, but if you have the OFB expansion pack you can safely use the OFB sub-hood instead.

But... if I follow your directions carefully, I could theoretically add Riverblossom Hills as a Downtown?  Or would you still recommend sticking to the OFB template method?

Sorry to be such a nuisance with all my questions, but I just want to be sure I don't screw anything up and get this one-over-the-other glitch.

Ste

[SaraMK]

One last question, so when you are saying you can't add another OFB sub-hoods, you just mean that you can't go all willy nilly and just randomly add new sub-hoods.  That the only way to properly add sub-hoods now is to follow the tutorial, otherwise you might get screwed up Number IDs.  So... it's not that I shouldn't ever add a new Downtown at all.  It's just that, if I wanted to, I should carefully follow your tutorial to do so, right?

At first, I was under the impression that I couldn't add another Downtown ever.  From what I read, I inferred that there was something terribly wrong with Downtown, specifically, and that's why you recommended using the OFB template as the 1st method in this post:

But... if I follow your directions carefully, I could theoretically add Riverblossom Hills as a Downtown?  Or would you still recommend sticking to the OFB template method?

In a nutshell, here is the difference between using Downtown and using OFB: If you are using OFB and following the tutorial I gave you in post #59, the game itself will generate Number ID's that are correct for your specific neighborhood. If you are using Downtown, the Number ID's come from a completely different dummy neighborhood. I don't think it makes any difference, but the first one sort of sounds better, doesn't it?

Aside from this, there isn't a difference between adding another neighborhood as a Downtown or as the OFB sub-hood, except in the amount of work that you'd have to do. If you already have two or three Downtowns added, but no OFB yet, then it's preferable to add it as the OFB sub-hood, and also somewhat less likely to suffer a glitch since there will be fewer chances for something to go wrong somewhere.

Maybe I overstated the "DO NOT ADD DOWNTOWN!!!!11! slightly. For most people that's perfectly good advice, since there is no way that anyone would be aware of the potential glitch unless I did put a giant warning somewhere. Also, my original warnings about it were all written before I knew that the one-over-the-other glitch actually could be fixed after it had already happened. When I wrote the tutorial and made the merged neighborhood up for download, that glitch was believed to be the end of the neighborhood. Riverblossom introduced a problem that didn't exist before, in that now people have a valid reason to want to add yet another sub-hood... after I specifically said that doing this is forbidden. So then I had to do a complete turn-around and say that, no, it's not forbidden after all, and here's what you should do... so of course people are confused now.

The tutorial I gave you (post #59) is probably the best one for anyone to use when attaching Riverblossom. It covers all possible EP configurations and variations of sub-hoods attached to a neighborhood, and it does cover attaching Riverblossom as a Downtown. Despite the dire warnings, there is no big difference (aside from what I said at the top) between Method 1's Variations 1&2 and Method 2. But, it is completely untested, so if something blows up, I warned 'ya.

The only other note I have for all of the above is that if you are going to add Riverblossom as a Downtown, do not confuse Method 2 (which is specifically for adding it as Downtown) with Method 1. They are NOT the same. I already had one person PM me after getting them mixed up because Method 1 sounded like it would be easier....

[IAmTheRad]

Are you going to add an upload with the riverblossom hills pre-added?
It'd make the idiot of me who's likely to mess up with it and make it easier.
Of course, if you're waiting for a new SimPE to fix the broken sims with Seasons then I can wait.

[MrsSoares]

Is there a way to do this while maintaining the Pleasantville I have alreayd played... IOW, merging with it, so that I do not need to go back and play the same families all over again, or is it a must that I start from scratch?

TIA!

[SaraMK]

Is there a way to do this while maintaining the Pleasantville I have alreayd played... IOW, merging with it, so that I do not need to go back and play the same families all over again, or is it a must that I start from scratch?

TIA!

You would have to create your own merged neighborhood using the tutorial. There's some instructions for using an existing neighborhood on page 2 of this thread: http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=4480.50

[Avadon]

Hi, I'm trying to start completely over with your neighborhood.
I followed this exactly.

To install, place the Neighborhoods folder into \My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\ (don't forget to save/backup the one you already have there).

When Seasons loads the only option I am given are to either create a custom neighborhood, learn to play, or quit.
How can I fix this?

[SaraMK]

Try deleting the NeighborhoodsManager file.

However, it sounds like something went wrong somewhere.

Another thing to do is to look in the Neighborhoods folder and make sure you haven't accidentally created too many subfolders, such as Neighborhoods\Neighborhoods\N001. The only folders inside the Neighborhoods folder should be ones for the actual neighborhoods... in this case you should probably just have N001 if you were following my tutorial exactly.

[Avadon]

Holy Wow!!
That was a quick reply, you rock!

neighborhoodmanager.package isn't included in the download.

Current directory structure:
C:\Documents and Settings\Sims2\My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighborhoods\
\Neighborhoods\ contains:
N001
Tutorial (auto-created after I started Seasons)

\Neighborhoods-Backup\ contains:
G001
N001
N002
N003
Tutorial
NeighborhoodManager.package

...if you were following my tutorial exactly.

o.0
Is there more than one step in this process?
The readme.txt included in the download only says:
"INSTALLATION: Remove your current neighborhoods from the My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\ directory. Replace the Neighborhoods folder with the one you downloaded from me."

In addition to Seasons I have NL and all other episodes installed.

[SaraMK]

Oops, sorry, that part didn't really apply to the downloaded neighborhood, did it?

Okay, so where is \Neighborhoods-Backup\ located? You cannot have it ANYWHERE in the EA Games folder, or the game may try to read it. Put it somewhere else if it's inside the EA Games folder.

[Avadon]

Got it working..kinda..
I placed my old neighborhoodmanager.package in with your neighborhood.
Everything works and is accessable, however, Sim State University shows it's buildings and the lots of La Academie and vice-versa.

I'll move the backup out of the folder and delete and retry.

[Avadon]

Moving the backup outside of the directory fixed the problem.
Thanks for all the help.
It might be a good idea to add that note in the readme.txt

Thanks!

[saladoor]

Hi
I tried to merge my hoods a long time back now and ended up corupting strange (ville?) to the point where even when I delete neighbourhoods and load them again, it is still corupt, wont let me load atall.
Do you have any idea's on how I could get this hood back or where I might be able to download a fresh clean uncorupt one.
Thanks

[syberspunk]

What do you mean by delete neighborhoods?

And... when you merged your hoods, did you do it in the proper way, carefully following the steps laid out in SaraMK's tutorial?

I would suggest starting all over, using SaraMK's blank or clean templates and using her merged Pleasantview, Strangetown, and Veronaville template, if you really want a merged hood.

I would make backups every now and then, so if your 'hood ends up getting corrupted, you could at least go to a backup.  I usually at least make a backup once a month, or before doing anything major, such as installing a new EP/SP or even something as simple as using a new, experimental hack.

Ste

[SaraMK]

If you messed with something in the Program Files\EA Games\ directory, and you think you corrupted the Strangetown template, then you will need to pull a fresh copy off the Sims 2 (base game) CD.

[FlamingoKicker]

I setup my game with Pleasantview as my base neighborhood and Strangetown, Veronaville and Riverblossom Hills as my additional Downtown areas.

Everything worked great.  I've been playing it for months now but today I noticed something odd I hadn't even thought about before.

When I send sims to Gothier Green Lawns to try and see a ghost in the cemetary I see all the dead sims are gone. No graves. No urns. No tombstones. No nothing.  I wonder if there is someway to restore those sims back to their graves or are they just history?

Something go wrong in the merging process?

If there isn't anyway of getting those sims back I can live with that I guess cause it gives me an opportunity to kill off more sims.  LOL