Something weird...

[moniquinin]

...just happened to my game which I don't understand why or how it happened and if it can be fixed.  I have Uni, NL and OFB, I've basically only played Pleasantview and Downtown although I have a university attached (don't remember the name but it's the more Ivy Leagueish one) and I have Bluewater Village attached as well.  This morning I was reading about the whole cheesecake twins thing here and thought, hmm...i'm in the process of knocking up my sims, I want to check it out, and so assumed I needed to go to a bakery in the shopping village.  So, I decide to take one of my sims and I get the the two loading screens - and end up in one of my home lots.  I quit and go back to Pleasantview and try to go again with one of my sims and I only get four destinations, three of which are residential houses I have families in in Pleasantview and one is not even anything but a shell of some hills in bright green. 

I go back to the main neighborhood screen and click on the shopping chooser to go to the village directly without sims and what I find there are again, four residential lots with the families intact living there.

wtf?

But more importantly, what the hell can I do about this?  And lastly, is there any other way I can get some cheesecake???

(Spanish is my mother tongue so excuse any errors please!)

[V]

I have no idea about your other problem. But your sims can make cheesecake for themselves once their cooking skill gets high enough. I think it is around 7 or 8, but I am certain someone will be here in a minute to say what it really is. 

[moniquinin]

So I just read about deleting subhoods, etc and I'm wondering if I should do something like that, or if there is a way to reinstall this subhood.  Again, I've never played it, this thing happened the first time I ever tried to play it so there shouldn't be any npcs or townies or whatever there yet, other than of course, my three families that apparently live there and in Pleasantview simultaneously   

Oh and I forgot to write that although the destinations are residential lots in Pleasantview, the descriptions and names for them when the window pops up asking where in the village do you want to go are the default destinations and descriptions - Amelia's closet (if i remember correctly) the gorcery, some park and a restaurant I think.

ETA:  Oh man, I thought last night that I'd go to bed, wake up six hours later and come back here to find all sorts of helpful tips and solutions....guess not 

[cwykes]

It doesn't sound like Bluewater got installed properly to me, but I'm not particularly awesome.  Can you still get into the Uni and downtown OK? 

If you use the in game option to get rid of the subhood (I think there is one...) you'll be left with all the character files from Bluewater in your game.  You can then install a Bluewater without sims so that you don't duplicate 77 sims, but you will have lost the links between sims and their businesses.  Not too hard to recreate, but that would be a shame. More annoying - the game might generate a lot more townies for Bluewater if it thinks the old ones are now townies in the main hood.  If you don't let it, I'm not sure what visitors the Bluewater shops will get.

Every idea I can think of to fix it that involves having a look in SimPE to see what's there!  But you can probably see enough from looking at the N001 folder.  All the lot files for Bluewater should have been installed on the same day and shouldn't have changed since as you haven't played it.  Then check the character files - I'd guess some have been modified since when the sims turned up elsewhere, so it's not safe to get rid of those. 

Bluewater should have added:
N001_suburb001.package
N001_suburb001.png
77 character files to the character folder
33 lot files to the lots folder
N001ag_FamilyThumbnails.package to thumbnails
some pics to storytelling which don't matter.

I'm thinking you might be able to delete all the files that haven't been modified since the install - but you might not be able to do it without wrecking the characters who have been played in a way that might cause a BFBVFS later. But if none of this stuff ever got installed or none has ever been modified, you may be home free.

I have an alternative to Bluewater if you want to add a different shopping district on top of the messed up Bluewater - links in the siggy.  Desert and aliens don't really go with Pleasantview though...

[moniquinin]

Aw cwykes, you ARE awesome to me 

I've ONLY been playing downtown - had yet to enter any other subhood until I entered Bluewater and then this happened.  I've actually looked in the game to see if there is an in-game option to get rid of the subhood and couldn't find it, but that doesn't mean it's not there.

You can then install a Bluewater without sims so that you don't duplicate 77 sims, but you will have lost the links between sims and their businesses. 

Since I never played Bluewater yet and having gone to Bluewater and only finding three residential lots there (I entered one and found just my family there, no townies or anything) does this really matter?  I mean, where are the 77 sims?  As for businesses, I only have one business and it's a home one in Pleasantville and happens to not be one of the duplicate residences in Bluewater.

Also, don't know if I screwed this up even more, but I binned the three families from their homes in Bluewater and went back to Pleasantview to see what had happened, and of course, they're binned there.  I went back to Bluewater to see what would happen if I were to bulldoze one of the lots and the game crashed. 

One last thing I noticed, that residential lots seem to be on top of the original shops - you can see stuff sticking out of the lots as if from the bottom, like swimming pools and landscaping.

I'll check the folder now...

Right. I've checked the folder and inside the character folder I don't have only 77 files with the same modified date and time, or date of creation.  Not sure which date I should be looking at because I don't get date of installation.  Can I assume that the oldest date (date of creation) is the base game?  I've got 151 files all created in August 2004 (some modified today) and I just got the game a few months ago.  After that in chronoligical order I've got 5 files created 11 December and not modified, and 135 files created on 17 December, 1 created 2 minutes before 108, which were created three minutes before the final 26 of that day.  Of these 135 some have been modified up to today but 115 have not been modified at all since their creation.  I believe I did install Nl, Uni and OFB the same day - can't remember which one first, and again, I have not played Uni or OFB, so maybe these are the unmodified files?

Anyway, what can I do with these files??  Are you saying I could potentially dump them?  And how can I differentiate between them and the other expansions which I think I installed all on the same day?  I DO want a functional, working shopping village, so if I can just reinstall this subhood, that would be awesome.

[cwykes]

Look at the lots folder - the characters might have been modified, but the 33 lots shouldn't have been - that will give you the exact day and time of the OFB install.  I don't know about mac's but you can usually choose what you see in the columns when you are looking at a folder.  In windows I right click  on the header (name, date, type etc) and get a pop up menu of all the things I can have as headers.  In this case "date created" and "date modified" would be useful alongside each other.

If you start in the lots folder - can you find 33 lot files created at the same time?  If not, the Bluewater install really just didn't work, so there's nothing to recover.  If you can, note the date/time and then go and check the character folder.  How many character files were created at that time and how many have been modified since?  What are the dates on the two main "suburb" files? is there a backup of either of them?

I think doing anything with that subhood before you'd worked out what was going on was probably a bad idea.  Did you back up first?  If you've duplicated your own sims, you might want to go back to the old version...

If a character file has been modified, that means the sim has interracted with one of your sims.  Your sim now has a relationship with and memories of them stored away.  Deleting the original sim would mean those relationships and memories were pointing at somethiing that doesn't exist which is a Very Bad Thing (VBT) for your sim. You can fix it in simPE....

I really hesitate to recommend anything, but info about what files are there and what aren't might help anyone awesome who passes by.  I suspect it's the N001_suburb001.package file myself.  I'd like to say you can copy it from the default and rename it, but all the lots are renumbered during the re-install so I'm pretty sure that won't work. It would work for the png file, but that's just a picture.

The more I think about it, the more problems I can see with everything I want to suggest.  I think your best bet is to leave Bluewater in Pleasantview and just don't touch it.  If you want to play Bluewater, add it to Veronaville or a new custom hood.  If you decide you want a suburb you can play in Pleasantview, make an extra one and add that on top of Pleasantview - you can take the lots from Bluewater via the lot bin if you want them.  Your game will load and run faster if you just make business lots in Pleasantview or downtown though.

Whatever you do, you need to keep some backups so that you can "undo" anything that really turns out badly.

[moniquinin]

Thanks for your help.  Can I just vent for a sec? [Carajo, sea la foquin puta MADRE, this really sucks ASS DICK!!!] 

I Feel better now.

I can't use Simpe because it doesn't exist for macs. 

I don't have 33 lots created at the same time, I have 66 lots created THE SAME DAY in four groups each a couple of minutes apart.  None of these groups individually add up to 33.  Of these 66, only one has been modified since it's creation.  Now, question about character interaction re their memories - if I've never played Bluewater or Uni, wouldn't these characters never have interacted with mine?  Or, would they have appeared as townies or NPCs in Pleasantview or Downtown?  Actually, I think the answer to this is yes isn't it, at least for Uni.  Is there a character list somewhere of the names of these OFB characters so I can see if my sims have memories of them?  Does this even make sense?

Oh, and this is a non sequitur, but might be related to just how fubarred my game is, I've got 2 Maryelena (Hamilton?)s -- one is the ugly brunette in that horrible hoody thing and very bad hair that I think is the default character, and another was just spawned who is a blonde, blue-eyed pale cutie postal worker.

And, just out of curiosity, what modifies a lot file?  Does just playing it modify it?  Because I don't understand why any of these would be modified since I haven't touched any community lots, just played a few Downtown ones. 

[Emma]

There are supposed to be 2 Marylena Hamiltons in Pleasantview and any custom neighbourhood, don't worry.

[Sagana]

Ya know, hating to recommend reinstalling, but I think in this particular case, I would back up my downloads, neighborhoods (only the custom ones and *not* subhoods) and characters and just reinstall everything from scratch. It sounds so way messed up, I dunno that I'd be convinced I could fix it. Just save your sims and start over?

[cwykes]

Maxis has such a short list of names that every time a sim is spawned you risk getting one with the same name as an existing townie.  It's irritating - add Jordi's or one of the other lists of names to your game to increase the choice.  If it really bugs you, turn boolprop testingcheatsenabled true and make the new Marylena selectable, rename her and then make her unselectable again.  You can do that with OFB. 

The Bluewater characters might have just turned up downtown or in your main hood.  There's no point checking your sims for memories of them because the bigger problem is gossip memories which you can't see from the game.  You can see those in SimPE.....   They are a large part of why cleaning up hoods is so painful.  Pescado's new lotdebugger option helps a lot with that.

I think I'll stick with "don't touch it" as my best advice - Think of it as having lots of extra townies in Pleasantview.  If you want to play the maxis made sims in Bluewater the way they were arranged by maxis, add Bluewater to another hood. I'd check that template actually matches the numbers I gave you first though!    I can't see any way you're going to get to play them as intended in Pleasantview.  The template for Bluewater is here
C:\Program files\The Sims 2 Open For Business\TSData\Res\NeighborhoodTemplate\B001
Don't try and match file sizes in your hood folder to these.  I tried and failed - DK why but they are different

EDITED BIT =OK I checked in game about deleting Bluewater.  Looks to me like you can't delete Bluewater if it is the only suburb, but you can if you make another one first.  So, click on that shopping hood button, choose make a custom hood and pick a terrain you like the look of.  Then click once on the Bluewater icon and you'll see a little garbage can icon.  I tried it out quickly on a test hood.  You'll find the maxis playable sims in the sim bin and they'll still have the deeds for the businesses they owned even though the businesses are gone. 

[witch]

I've made the Bluewater residential lots - with no sims or pets - available for download from laverwinkle sims.
http://laverwinklesims.com/index.php?topic=605.0

ETA: I've also posted the Bluewater community lots to Laverwinkle. They were sold before they were packaged.
http://laverwinklesims.com/index.php?board=54.0

[moniquinin]

Thanks all of you for your help.  I just realised my game is just way too screwed up to continue with it. I'm going to dump the whole lot and try again.  I also just got pets and have been afraid to install it just yet because it seemed like it would be too painful to deal with all my cc and check if it's compatible, but now I will just start from scratch AGAIN!  Seems like I can never get beyond two sim days before something goes wrong -- don't know what the hell I do that just makes things go tits up.

[cwykes]

Can I suggest you do it a bit at a time rather than all at once?  Just install base game, patch it and check out those scenarios - like the the Curious brothers.  If it's looking OK, add Uni and patch that.  Play it for a bit before you add NL and patch it....  Remember, you need to keep starting the game from an icon pointing at the highest EP...

[moniquinin]

I am not understanding...Curious brothers?

[theisz]

The Curious Brother's live in Strangetown in the house with the multi level tower and telescope. 

[moniquinin]

Oh, thanks.  Never entered Strangetown.

[cwykes]

You should.  The higher EPs broke the "scenarios" or the things that were set-up to happen when you first played the hoods, so your only chance to play them is from base game or Uni.  The curious brothers are worth an hour or two  - just don't stop the guy heading for that telescope - in fact watch him like a hawk!   The old lady in the big house is also worth a visit Olive/Olivia/?  .....  I quit without saving when I first played those houses because I made such a mess of it!  There's not much in Veronaville to miss I think - maybe a party at the Summerdreams.

[moniquinin]

Does anything in Pleasantview "break" with the EPs?

[jrd]

Yes, the scenarios. The Dreamer household loses all its bills for example.

[moniquinin]

Oh fuckity hell.  I guess for full enjoyment I'm going to have to do this again and keep separate hack folders because what works for pets will not work for just the base game, right?

[vcline]

If you're just going to be playing each neighborhood for one or two simdays to check out the pre-made scenarios, maybe it's better not to use any hacks, although Pescado does have his grouped by EP, so you could install the appropriate ones, then move on to the next batch when you install the next EP.

[jrd]

What works:

-Install just the base game and load all lots in all thre neighbourhoods briefly. You can immediately safe.
-Install your expansions and (if wanted) your hacks
-Play.

This should allow the scenarios to work, but keep in mind that due to gameplay changes they may not work exactly as intended. But at least you get the bills for the Dreamers etc..

[moniquinin]

What does it mean to not work as intended?  Could you elaborate?  And loading all lots, is this going into them and actually playing them?

Sorry if this is a tedious question but I bought a Sims 2 with all expansions (except pets) at the same time and wasn't aware of these scenario differences.  I just want to start playing as soon as possible and forget about the technical crap.  If what I lose in the "not working as intended" is really minor, then I'll do as you say, but it if it's not and I miss out on some cool enjoyment, then that's a different story.

[V]

I don't know all of them, but the original sims 2 game had a few situations set up to happen when you first play certain lots. I didn't realize this when I started playing, so I thwarted some of those scenarios. For instance in Pleasantview Daniel Pleasant is ready to have an affair with the help. But Mary Sue is set up to get sent home early from work due to a non-chance chance card. So if Daniel does go ahead and woohoo with the maid then he will get caught by Mary Sue and life will be forever changed.

Nina & Dina Caliente are set up to have a "special visitor" show up the first night.

Don Lothario has garbage strewn all over his condo. I think you have three options there - hire a maid (his lover, Kaitlynn), have him clean it up himself (he will whine about it, or, possibly, let him die by flies.

Darren Dreamer has a low relationship with his (fortune aspiration) son and he has bills all over his house. I think the point to that set-up is to have the repo man come and wreck Dirk's day.

Oh, and at the Goth mansion Cassandra & Don Lothario are set up to be married on that very day. The decision to play that lot before or after playing various other lots can have dramatic effects on the outcome of the Goth Wedding Scenario.

Those are probably not all of them. Also there were other set-ups in other base hoods. But I don't remember very many of those other than the Curious Brothers scenario that has already been hinted at.

[moniquinin]

So would these not play at all if I follow Jordi's advice?