Manually deleting all characters?

[uaintjak]

So...I only have the basic Sims 2 installed.  Eventually I plan on getting University, and eventually after that, I plan on getting Nightlife.  When I started my new neighborhood, I didn't want any Townies or anything - just the basic NPCs that you need.  So of course I used the "delete all characters" command.

The problem is, I want to play this neighborhood forever, and I don't want lots of extra clutter.  So when I install University, of course I'll install the "no dormie regeneration" hack - but I won't be able to use the "delete all characters" command because that would kill my neighborhood sims that I play.

So...let's assume I buy University, install it, and before ever sending a sim to University, I open up SimPE and manually delete all the character files that don't belong to my own, playable characters, and the critiical NPCs (the Reaper, etc).  This will in effect achieve what I want, correct? (No extraneous characters cluttering up the neighborhood).  The game will automatically generate the critical sims it needs (like it did for the maid, the driver, the nanny, etc), correct?  So I'll still have professors and secret society members and all that - without a big fiery ball etc etc.  Does all this sound right, or am I missing something?

[Motoki]

Honestly, I don't know if I'd mess with it until and unless Quaxi does that full deletion of characters and all accompanying data feature in SimPE. There's just a lot to mess with and it can get really messy.

If you absolutely must do it, then hook up the university town to your main town and immediately exit and do the deed before those townies and such have any chance to interact with anyone.

I'm also not even sure if you can have secret society members without townies/dormies. If you delete them all and then have no regen, I'm not convinced the game will regenerate them.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, I deleted all characters with uni, and although simPE shows two or three recreated dormies, they never show up on lots at all!  And if you're going to do it manually, I'd suggest that first you check their relationships as some of them  seem to start the game with relationships to each other or the mascots etc., in which case, you'd need to delete those memories from those NPCs memory files.

[AllenABQ]

So...I only have the basic Sims 2 installed.  Eventually I plan on getting University, and eventually after that, I plan on getting Nightlife.  When I started my new neighborhood, I didn't want any Townies or anything - just the basic NPCs that you need.  So of course I used the "delete all characters" command.

The problem is, I want to play this neighborhood forever, and I don't want lots of extra clutter.  So when I install University, of course I'll install the "no dormie regeneration" hack - but I won't be able to use the "delete all characters" command because that would kill my neighborhood sims that I play.

So...let's assume I buy University, install it, and before ever sending a sim to University, I open up SimPE and manually delete all the character files that don't belong to my own, playable characters, and the critiical NPCs (the Reaper, etc).  This will in effect achieve what I want, correct? (No extraneous characters cluttering up the neighborhood).  The game will automatically generate the critical sims it needs (like it did for the maid, the driver, the nanny, etc), correct?  So I'll still have professors and secret society members and all that - without a big fiery ball etc etc.  Does all this sound right, or am I missing something?

Although I've never used the function myself, the NPC/Townie Maker that is available under the boolprop debug mode has an option to "Kill all Townies".  I'm assuming it simply gives all townies dead tokens, but I'm not sure.  It's unlikely that it deletes them, but you might fire up a separate neighborhood and give it a try.  Students show up in the regular townie family hive so when you get University its an option for getting rid of them.

[ZephyrZodiac]

What I did wonder, though, is if you remove your saved games to the desktop before installing Uni, then run deleteallcharacters before copying your folders back in, whether that might work.  You'd have to be prepared for a lot of pauses while the game generates new NPCs etc., though.

[simmiecal]

What I did wonder, though, is if you remove your saved games to the desktop before installing Uni, then run deleteallcharacters before copying your folders back in, whether that might work.  You'd have to be prepared for a lot of pauses while the game generates new NPCs etc., though.

Wouldn't that be a problem because some sims would have memories of having met some of the old NPCs who are no longer in the game? Or since the sam NPCs get generated would it just assume that the memories from meeting the old Kaylynn (or whatever the maid's name is) apply to the new Kaylynn?

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, if you take the complete neighbourhood folder and put it on the desktop, Kaylynn will be there!  If you then install Uni and delete all characters, then neither |Kaylynn or any other maid or whatever will be in the game copy - it will be empty.  Then, if you copy the original folder back (note I say move to desktop, but copy back (that way if it goes pearshaped, you haven't lost your hood)  everything and allow windows to overwrite every folder in the neighbourhood, you should just have your originals in there. You can check your character folder in simPE if you want, just to be sure it's worked.   The game will only generate replacement NPCs for those that you don't have, such as cheerleaders, professors etc.

[simmiecal]

Well, if you take the complete neighbourhood folder and put it on the desktop, Kaylynn will be there! .........   The game will only generate replacement NPCs for those that you don't have, such as cheerleaders, professors etc.

Got it. Thanks. I was thinking that the NPCs weren't part of the neighborhood  (like playable sims) and wouldn't be saved.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Every sim the game ever created, including ghosts, barista spam etc, will be in the Character folder unless you remove them yourself!

As I think I said, I don't know if it will work, but it seems to me that it might, and it's certainly worth trying.

[MissDoh]

Just be careful with the University part.   I did a few deleteallcharacters and notice that I needed to go play at least once with the Sims that were place in the college lots otherwise those lots were becoming corrupted, I was never able to load them either the game just show the glasshour meter indefinitely or the game crash.  If you load them once, move them do the bin and delete them either within the familybin or by a delleteallcharacters you should be ok.

The game does not let us move those characters to the bin unless we played the lots at least once.  I mostly choose Academie La Tour when I do that since there is no greek house in that neighborhood.  I wonder if by moving the greek member out of the house it will become a normal resident lot or do we need to change zoning.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, I did it in this latest neighbourhood, and it never caused any crashes!  But the game will freeze for a while when it needs to generate a new NPC, and maybe this could cause your game to crash?

[MissDoh]

Did you try to edit a house in which there was Sims previously place there by the game?  This is when my game locks, it only crash once. 

In Veronaville I had the same problem, I use a deleteallcharacters and after that I decided to edit the houses and prepare them for the families I will create, I was never able to load houses in which families were in, I needed to move them all to the familybin previously.

I have Nightlife in case it does make a difference.  I never really done it before Nightlife.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, I don't have Nlghtlife yet. 

In answer to the problems about houses, though, I've used both frat houses in La fiesta, and also the Shifting Paranormals house.  I haven't used the big expensive house, but I have re-decorated and refurnished it, plus done some rebuilding so there was more than one bedroom and bathroom!  It seemed ok, saved a couple of times without any problems.  every othr house I've rebuilt, turned into dorms, moved sims in, turned back into residential, all without any hitches.  considering how many I had when I used La fiesta with Strangetown, this is good!

[MissDoh]

Well after you install Nightlife (if ever you do) try it and let me know since I am starting to wonder if anything is wrong in my game. 

So I create a neighborhood, choose a University, choose a downtown section then use the deleteallcharacters.  When I do that way I cannot load houses in which Sims were in.

If I create a neighborhood, choose a University, choose a downtown section then load University part, play 2 sim min. with each family, save, move them to the family bin, delete them all from the bin and then only do a deleteallcharacters then I am ok and can go and edit any houses.  But, in another post I mention that when I deleted the characters of those 3 neighborhoods at all once and recreated them all with Boolprop, the Sims I create afterward all have funny aspiration/LTW which are not related.  But I can use the Renuyu-U and they can get to normal after that but I have no idea if all the townies/NPC are ok or if they will act weird.

Maybe I will push this further and create another neighborhood and delete them and simply see what will happen, I am just tired of waisting my time doing it over and over again these days, I want to play! 

[ZephyrZodiac]

Have you tried uninstalling Nightlife, creating the Uni hood you want, then, if it works, backing it up before trying Nightlife again?  If it goes pear-shaped, at least you'll know for certain that it's NL that caused the problem, if it doesn't, then your original install may not have installed properly.  (I had that happen the first time I installed Uni, and quite a few other people posted with the same problem over at simFreaks.)  Unforutnately, I think you'd have to do a complete clean uninstall reinstall of everything, but it might be worth it.  that was how I solved my problem with Uni.

[MissDoh]

Thanks I will consider this as a last but valuable option. 

[ZephyrZodiac]

Once you make your mind up to do it, it doesn't take all that long, sims2 is the worst, but the EPs aren't so bad - it's having to keep typing in the number of your copy, plus constantly swapping CDs that takes the time!

[simposiast]

I don't know if this is possible, but you can create college town templates.  You could create a college in another neighbourhood using one of the standard university templates, delete all characters there, then use the empty college neighbourhood as a template to add to your base neighbourhood.   It may not work, I don't know if the game would generate new townies as soon as you associate a new college with it.

[MissDoh]

Once you make your mind up to do it, it doesn't take all that long, sims2 is the worst, but the EPs aren't so bad - it's having to keep typing in the number of your copy, plus constantly swapping CDs that takes the time!

Did not took me long to made-up my mind, I just uninstall everything, what better time then now since I just resetted my game anyway!

Well now I'm off to play the little matching game when we install Sims 2, I wonder what score I will have 

EDIT:  It is done now with no problem at all reinstalling all of them + Nightlife patch.  Now let's see what will happen now.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Do let us know if it works  - I'm sure there will be other folks who would be glad to know, (me too, since it was only a guess!)

[MissDoh]

Do let us know if it works  - I'm sure there will be other folks who would be glad to know, (me too, since it was only a guess!)

Well so far it was a good suggestion, I assign a dowtown section and Académie Le tour to Veronaville, did a deleteallcharacters in the University section, went back to regular neighborhood clic on a house in which there was some Sims before and it loaded like a charm.  So I went back to University section and did the same with no problem either.

Now all is left for me to test is if after I recreated all the NPC and townies if I will have Sims with funny aspiration/LTW again.

I will edit this post when I have the result.

EDIT:  thanks a million Zephyr it seems to have been a faulty installation.  I created all the NPC and townie for Veronaville in regular, downtown and University neighborhoods using boolprop, then I created 9 sims and they all have related aspiration/LTW.  Thanks for pointing that solution to me I wouldn't have thought of that. Now it's time to have fun 

[ZephyrZodiac]

It's nice to know I was right!  And if I need to do the same before I install NL, at least I'll know what to do!  I'm glad everything's working smoothly now!

[Ancient Sim]

Honestly, I don't know if I'd mess with it until and unless Quaxi does that full deletion of characters and all accompanying data feature in SimPE. There's just a lot to mess with and it can get really messy.

This is available now in the Beta Testing version (49) and it works miracles.  I got rid of 40 characters today and there is no trace left of them, not even invisible memories.  There is still some manual editing to do insofar as if, for instance, the first kiss/woohoo was with a deleted Sim, you need to add that memory to the second person they got to know 'that way' instead.  Similarly, one of 'Two Loves' removed would necessitate removing the "Had 2 Loves at Once" memory if only one remains, but it's a small price to pay for the ease of removing characters who've become a waste of space.  I had so many lots I hadn't played in months, with Sims who were still at the start of adulthood when people born after them were dead or nearly dead, so it felt great to finally get rid of them for good.  I have a few more I will probably delete as well. 

[Brynne]

Is this the QA version, Ancient? I have that, but don't know how to delete the characters. How do you do it?

[Motoki]

*blinks* me too. I have that version but didn't realize it could safely delete characters now.