Empty and Cleaned-up Templates. [UPDATED]

[Tragic]

@ tragic: You put them here: C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Seasons\TSData\Res\UserData\Neighborhoods.

Ah ha! Thank you

[Jelenedra]

Also, FYI, the link to the Clean, Fixed templates for PleasantView, Veronaville, and Strangetown is borken.

Sysa posted them here for download.

Ah! Mmkay. I was just looking in SaraMK's post. Thanks, gynarchy.

[sorchin]

I'm curious:
I have done everything I'm supposed to do. However I'm wondering what Npc's will take over for example the police, fireman, mailman, cashier jobs? Will they be pooled from my own created NPC's?
Thanks.
Oh another question: What about the Neighborhood folder in the My Docs folder? I still have alot of "characters" in my character folders. Do I just leave them alone or should I erase them and put the "Neighborhood Package" files in them as well?
Thanks again...

[Soylent Sim]

The game will auto-generate NPC's as needed.  Antiredundancy is popular amongst many MATY-ites, but only useful if you have an unpatched BV or want to keep your character count down.  Personally, I prefer the little variety.

And the folders in My Documents are the neighborhoods you play with.  Installing empty templates won't do anything to them.  To clean those up, you need either a massive Deleted 2 binge, or else to junk the neighborhood whole and start fresh.  Remember that starting fresh is exactly what it sounds like; all your current characters and houses will be lost.  Empty templates are mostly there for people who start fresh 'hoods, and don't want to see the same townies/NPCs/extra families dumped in all the time.

[J. M. Pescado]

Antiredundancy is useful, patch or no patch, because it prevents the game from spawning 3 unnecessary copies of EVERY NPC in the game, including those that have zero sociable value, like social workers, repomans, etc. As a rule, keeping the extra NPC count down will shave hundreds of character files off your game and correspondingly improve your loading times.

[sorchin]

I see ok thanks: So..just to be clear. If I delete N001 for example in My docs it won't affect my new hood (N004) correct?
Also, is there an empty Neighborhood.package file for Bon Voyage (V001), the instructions say to "replace this with an empty one". If there isn't one, how do I go about creating an empty hood package file for V001?

[J. M. Pescado]

Deleting a neighborhood in your documents directory has no effect on your other neighborhoods. To replace a template neighborhood with a "clean template", you need to look in your main install directory. Be sure not to lose the original, as patches may require it. Again, this has no effect on presently existing neighborhoods, but if you create a new neighborhood after that, it will use the data contained in the replaced template.

[sorchin]

Thanks JM:

[Tragic]

Could someone point me in the direction of a cleaned version of BV that works and won't make my game go boom? I would do it myself, but I'm not as Sims2 savvy as I like to think  . Thanks

[Kyna]

BV templates by Argon are buried in the middle of this very thread.  Try this post.

[Tragic]

Thanks Kyna, I saw that but I didn't get it because I thought it was one of the bugged versions, plus I'm confused as to whither it is a clean version or empty as it says to delete character files. I would like a cleaned version of BV since I want the tourists/locals, just not as many.

Ok, I've read this about 20 times now and I think my brain is leaking out of my ears...

Family Ties and Neighborhood Memory have both been replaced with copies from a raw (no templates in the game files) clean neighborhood. That will stop any garbage from being copied over when the two neighborhoods are merged. The V001 folder is a complete replacement (since it has no lots) so just move the original, all others require the character files to be deleted.

Does he mean that if I want the tourists/locals, but not the family that comes with BV, that I need to delete everything in V001 and replace it with the files that I download and not touch A001, M001, and T001?

[yashila]

Yepp that's what I think @ Tragic...but I'd do a backup just to be sure anyway.


I can't wait for the clean Free Time templates lawl...will they be posted here, too? God I forgot how ugly maxis sims were. 

[Tarlia]

I, too, would like less Free Time stealth townies. Is there a tutorial anywhere on how you make the clean templates?

[gynarchy]

That's a lot of sharing. O.o You can pull the original files off the CDs and save someone a lot of upload time. Browse the compressed.zip to TSData\Res\UserData\Neighborhoods and/or TSData\Res\UserData\NeighborhoodTemplate and pull the files from there. The files are on Disc 2 for FT so you may have to check each disk. Then make backups of all of them.

[BastDawn]

Then I guess you'd better download µTorrent, head over to someplace like The Pirate Bay, and start arrrring files.

[broo]

Why on Earth would you sell disks of the game you're planning to play in the future ? Just a question..
I'm also looking for a way to clean my templates of the FT characters... Deleting their files before loading the game works in a way but I'm worrying about the things I left my hood cluttered with by doing that as I didn't clean the neighbourhood file..

[yashila]

Yepp I tried deleting too and then I like deleted the lot files lol...which I restored - thank god. Lol.  So I'm basically not touching anything until the templates comes out... 

[Tarlia]

Pardon the dark sorcery, but will these be updated for Pets? 

Cleaning Pets addons is easier: Backup your neighborhood, let Pets install, save the most-recently-generated SuburbXXX file, keep that, restore backup, add this file.

Question: Can I do this for Free Time? I really don't want those Sim Bin families or the various other stealth characters in F002 (what are the others, anyway? All hobby NPCs, or additional townies, or both? 36 files in total. I feel so crippled without SimPE.)

[IAmTheRad]

You want a clean stealth neighbourhood, or an empty one?

[missaaliyah]

I want a clean neighbourhood, but with the sims still in it, just no npc's and etc... just with the families only.  How do I do this.

[Tarlia]

You want a clean stealth neighbourhood, or an empty one?

Empty, preferably (F002). I disliked the full FT neighbourhood (F001) anyway, so I doubt I'll play it. Just want to avoid clutter in my otherwise nice and clean neighbourhoods (that I made using these other empty/clean templates).

[IAmTheRad]

Note: Do NOT, I repeat, do NOT delete the lots in the neighbourhood folder.

This is an empty template, maybe has some garbage files in it. It might be able to be cleaned better than I can do this.

And again, do NOT delete the lots. I can't stress this enough

Go ahead and delete all the characters, the thumbnails.

You may think that you need to delete the lots folder, but those are needed by the game. The game will use those lots for the special hobby lots that you need a membership card to get into. The game most likely cannot create them on it's own, much unlike the secret society lots.

Both attachments are exactly the same. Just a bug in the forum makes it show two of the same.

[Tarlia]

Note: Do NOT, I repeat, do NOT delete the lots in the neighbourhood folder.

This is an empty template, maybe has some garbage files in it. It might be able to be cleaned better than I can do this.

And again, do NOT delete the lots. I can't stress this enough

Go ahead and delete all the characters, the thumbnails.

You may think that you need to delete the lots folder, but those are needed by the game. The game will use those lots for the special hobby lots that you need a membership card to get into. The game most likely cannot create them on it's own, much unlike the secret society lots.

Both attachments are exactly the same. Just a bug in the forum makes it show two of the same.

Cool, thank you!

How exactly do you make these, if you don't mind sharing? I'm curious, and I like fiddling. (I work as a programmer so I know to take backups and not fuck things up, so no worries. )

[IAmTheRad]

Note: Do NOT, I repeat, do NOT delete the lots in the neighbourhood folder.

This is an empty template, maybe has some garbage files in it. It might be able to be cleaned better than I can do this.

And again, do NOT delete the lots. I can't stress this enough

Go ahead and delete all the characters, the thumbnails.

You may think that you need to delete the lots folder, but those are needed by the game. The game will use those lots for the special hobby lots that you need a membership card to get into. The game most likely cannot create them on it's own, much unlike the secret society lots.

Both attachments are exactly the same. Just a bug in the forum makes it show two of the same.

Cool, thank you!

How exactly do you make these, if you don't mind sharing? I'm curious, and I like fiddling. (I work as a programmer so I know to take backups and not fuck things up, so no worries. )

I used the new QA of SimPE that was released today.

[Tarlia]

I used the new QA of SimPE that was released today.

Ooh, I hadn't seen that. Thanks.