More Awesome Than You!

See: It's my neighborhood, I'll change it however I want to.
Warning: This is experimental. It's worked for me twice now, but back up your neighborhood files before starting.
More methods are being discussed. Skip to here (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,11323.msg345422.html#msg345422) to get up to date.


What you need:
1. A version of SimPE that will work with FreeTime. Until the team releases a final version, you can obtain the QA version by requesting to be added to the group at the SimPE site (http://simpeforum.ambertation.de/sims2/SimPE-Quality-Assurance-Program).
2. A sim with a membership to the hobby lot you would like to edit.
3. At least one community lot in your neighborhood or sub-neighborhoods.
4. The original SimPE lot description files. You can obtain all of the original lot descriptions from my 4shared drive (http://www.4shared.com/dir/5978621/5f028eb5/HobbyLots_-_SimPE_backup.html). You can also extract your original ones before starting via SimPE, but why duplicate work?

Step 1:
Using a sim who has access to the lot you would like to edit, travel to the lot. In my example, we are using the Fitness lot, Platinum Gym.

Step 2:
Enter the cheats "changelotzoning residential" and "boolProp dormspecifictoolsdisabled false".

Step 3:
Tear down, build, and decorate to your little heart's content. This will cost your sim money, so be sure to use the familyFunds cheat or kaching it back when done. Note: to access Build mode, you must be in Buy mode and use the eyedropper to select a Build mode object (i.e. a window, door, floor tile).

Step 4:
Save the lot.

Step 5:
Enter the cheat "changelotzoning secrethobbylot". Do not save again until you leave this lot.

Step 6:
Direct your sim to walk to a community lot. Once at the community lot, direct your sim to walk home. Save and exit your game.
Why the roundabout? Changing the lot to residential earlier may have temporarily removed the option to walk home, as the hobby lot isn't truly a hobby lot in the eyes of the game currently. No worries; we're about to fix that.

Step 7:
Fire up your SimPE. Click on the Neighborhood Browser. Click on your neighborhood, then choose the Hobbies sub-neighborhood as below.
(http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z301/kariminger/Step1.jpg)

Step 8:
On the left*, choose the Lot Description sort. Directly on the right, click on the lot you have built on. Note the instance number. Write this down somewhere.
(http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z301/kariminger/Step2.jpg)
See how it says the lot type is residential? Yup, that's why we did the roundabout method to leave the lot.


Step 9:
Now right-click on the lot name. Choose "Delete" on the menu that pops up. I know, it's scary. Hit the Save button on the top menu bar.
(http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z301/kariminger/Step3.jpg)

Step 10:
Right-click anywhere in that right window. Choose "Add" on the menu that pops up. Now, add that original .simpe lot description file you downloaded or extracted earlier that matches the lot you are changing. In this case, I'm adding Platinum Gym.simpe.
(http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z301/kariminger/Step4.jpg)

Step 11:
Now change the Instance number to the one you had noted before. If you'd like to change the lot name or description, now is the time to do it. Click on "Commit" in the lower right corner. Save via the button on the top menu.
(http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z301/kariminger/Step5.jpg)

Step 12:
Close SimPE. Start your game. Take your sim back to the hobby lot. No more EAxis fug.

*If I actually got all these rights and lefts correct, I get a cookie. Stupid spatial organization issues.

Zazazu, this is awesome! I am definitely going to do this when I get SimPe ;D

This will still work with the BV version of SimPe?

Can't you fucking read? Step #1 says "A version of SimPE that will work with FreeTime. Until the team releases a final version, you can obtain the QA version by requesting to be added to the group at the SimPE site."  So obviously it won't fucking work with the BV version.

Sheesh!

...specifically because BV SimPE can't read the type of lot that the hobby lots are (0000x7). Signing up for the QA is easy, and they are being unusually quick approving people. I think I was approved within 3 hours.

thanks Zazazu, ill give that a shot.
my apologizes for wasting your time when i should have read the whole thing, instead of skimming.
oh well, not to worry, EVERYONE is human. and makes mistakkes. *oops* my bad.
Cheers

This is completely not like the method I used. I just copied the Lot Descriptor entries and nametags (and deleted all the extraneous crap infesting the files) from the Hobby hood, transferred into a blank OFB subhood, terrain surgeried, and loadlotted.

Any chance for those of us who are less savvy that someone will upload a replacement set without the obvious flaws?

"Completely not like" = bad    or    "Completely not like" = acceptable alternative, though not awesome?
It didn't look like this method was creating any extra junk code, so I figured it was ok to share.

Thank you for this great Tutorial. I definitely want to try it as I really cannot stand Maxis/EA lots!

Now, to sound really dense, I looked high and low and cannot find the membership application button at SimPE. I really do not think I am blind yet, and did see another post where somebody else could not find it.

So, if somebody can tell me where the heck it is I will look again.

Thank you!
 :)

You have to be logged in to the site. I was doing the same thing.

You just achieved superhero status!! I've been tinkering and trying to make my own from scratch, but this will work, too.

Saving a non-saveable lot with sims still on it is generally a bad plan, since the lot will then permanently be stored with your SIM STILL ON IT. This is a Bad Thing.

UM - I should have thought of that! Thank you for the info! Now the question is whether to proceed or not. I don't want to mess up my game, but need a method that can be done by a member of the peasant class. If you and JM can work out the kinks and let us know the best way to proceed it will be very much appreciated.

 :)

Ok. Hmm. Pescado, your method has lots of appeal now that I think of it, especially if you are going to need to edit the lot more than once. Since you can get into the sub-hood, you can just do LoadLot to get back in. Plus, you know, dangling sims are a bit freaky and require more work.

Thing is, I fail at cleaning lot files. I'm not sure what would be considered extraneous crap.

If we are going to round 2, I hope that one of you can give us peasant level instructions as to what we should do. I REALLY want to get those lots redone as Maxis lots are a complete offense to my game!  They always are so, so bad! :'( :)

No, I'm keeping it all to myself.   :P

So we are still running with the Tutorial as being ok to edit the secret lots? Or does it cause bad coding and crap like J.M has said.
this is still a very awesome thing. Because lets face it... EAxis dont really do anything thing tha good... coding. sims. lots.
Thanks Zazazu.
Also. got the QA accepted for SimPE approved 10mins after the request, played with it alot last night. Cheers.

Handover the superhero badge...and the free flashlight!

I need a flashlight! You know how often power goes out here. No takesies backsies.

Jellygoose, I'd say it's one of those at-your-own-risk things at this point. Doing it once in a clean 'hood shouldn't hurt things, but doing it 20 times might cause some hiccups. I'm just hoping Pescado will deem to enlighten us regarding which files would need to be cleaned and how in his method, because I can always adjust mine and repost instructions.

Er... I think you'll find it's been quick ever since some proper admins were finally appointed, rather than a few hibernating tortoises. ;)

*ahem* I wasn't going to say that, but I did notice who was doing the thread-starting.

Has anyone tried editing a secret hobby lot by typing "loadlot [lotname]" at all yet?

I had, and it wouldn't load. My format was loadlot "Platinum Gym". Didn't do a damned thing. I can get to my other community lots that way (I tried with Always in Season--one of my staple self-builts).

Oh well, it was a thought.   My sim got into the dance studio and it had nowhere you could get anything to eat, not even a grill.  But I don't think I can face going through all this just to add one.  I used maxmotives in the end :)

A useful quirk of Macrotastics is that it is able to still access the inventory, and thus you can pull plates from your inventory there. I kept it because it was cool, like sack-lunch. Who GRILLS on random community lots, anyway?

My sims all use the comm lot grills :D

Is it possible, then,in my new hood, to install my own lot, then change it to secret hobby lot using changelotzoning? without having to deal at all with maxis fugs?

I tried to build one from scratch and was not able to do it. When I used the change zoning cheat the lot could not be saved. When I changed it back to a community lot I was able to save it. I am just guessing that it is like the s societies and that a new one cannot be built with one already in the hood. (There may be a max for FT?)

But seeing as how the game dumps the lots in the hood automatically at loading even if the lots have been removed once (which I did), I can't figure  out how to make a new one.

Aaargh!  :(

I have not played with swapping in and out  program files, but imagine that if the hobby subhood creation mechanism is removed that would also remove the capability of making a hobby lot. I may experiment later.  We need a No Hobby Lot Respawn Hack!  :D

So do mine, but mainly because I keep forgetting about the sack lunch options.

Theoretically, yes, you can, using JM's method. The secrethobbylot cheat doesn't specify what type, which is why the cheat itself is near useless. Takes a bit more work in the beginning, and I'm not sure how nicely it will play if you have existing hobby lots. Probably would be fine. I have bits of ideas. Just need to pound them into place. You'd have to save it as a residential and then change it back to secrethobbylot via SimPE. That portion should be the same as my method.

I'll try it tonight on a fresh custom 'hood and, if I have time, on Prospect Beach (since it already has the secret lots. I had to do Phase 3 of the build for my Nature lot, since building it bit-by-bit is part of my 'hood's story, and then build a Dreamy Fields (or whatever the name is. Not a fan of how huge they made that lot, considering that there really are only two sports activities that require objects. Built a small soccer field and tennis court (with bleachers) but still had half the lot left over. I miss those hot dog and ice cream stands from the original game.

Yup. WE do need some sort of hack to prevent the game from creating those hobby lots. Arrgh! I feel like deleting those lot files in F002. But I might just wreck my game. Problem is, I don't want to load my favorite hood for fear of the game spawning those hideous lots.

All tutorials and methods pre FT SimPe just confirm that probably this was the worst EP ever made. It will as always take only some weeks before all players are definitively fed-up of all the secrets.
Particularly I'll wait for the final SimPe release and will take all the new objects included and reprogram them to work as additional to the Base Game, that is actually the only thing that is relatively good.
I got a clean F002 and F001, played them and got no problem because I deleted all the characters, being in the root or in the supplied hood before even installing the EP. The folder Lots should never be deleted cause one day or another you will need them.
I don't know anything about secret lot members but I do know that except the Social Worker and Repos, all the other Sims can be contacted. It is only that Sims do not get any memory about them, not even if they do woohoo them. It is like they are the wind, it is there but no really touches it.
Unless EAxis changed this, Social Worker and Repos screw up the game.

Theoretically, yes, you can, using JM's method. The secrethobbylot cheat doesn't specify what type, which is why the cheat itself is near useless. Takes a bit more work in the beginning, and I'm not sure how nicely it will play if you have existing hobby lots. Probably would be fine. I have bits of ideas. Just need to pound them into place. You'd have to save it as a residential and then change it back to secrethobbylot via SimPE. That portion should be the same as my method.[/quote]
SimPE will not be required to perform any touch-ups afterwards, since the changes to the lotdescriptor will only occur inside the Stubhood and don't appear to impact the Real Hobby Hood.

So without a sim on-lot, you can save the lot while set as secrethobbylot? Nice. Logical, but not expected.

SimPE will not be required to perform any touch-ups afterwards, since the changes to the lotdescriptor will only occur inside the Stubhood and don't appear to impact the Real Hobby Hood.
[/quote]
In  English for non-awesomes like me, please? Is Zazazu's technique the way to go? Can Pescado please clarify?

Pescado's is better, but I'm researching a bit more regarding what all needs to be cleaned up before posting changes. I got sidetracked a bit trying to do something shinier (and potentially easier), which is about 90% to working.

I am really looking forward to getting more information regarding this as the current lots are awful.

As noted, it seemed strange when I was trying to build one that there was only the one cheat code.  I was not sure if the type of objects on the lot triggered the designation for the hobby type and to generate the correct expert ... or what.

It makes sense that the designation has to be programmed into the lot via SimPe.

 :)

Would this be an acceptable method for changing the BV secret vacation lots?

Couple things:

1. You can't set the lot type to the one it needs to be (Unknown .....X07) in the lot description, at least in plug-in view, in SimPE. If we could, I suspect things would be much easier.

2. I've been trying to turn a random community lot into a hobby lot using a mish-mash of my current method, but sans using a sim visitor in the process (therefore eliminating the messy bit of having a bit of sim data saved on the lot). It's not working. Changing all of what I call the "U values", or the dimensional references, isn't working. At best, I can get the lot to show for a member sim under Hobbies and not at all for a non-member sim. I can have them walk to the lot, but the lot never loads.

I spent a good bit of my day off yesterday fanangling with this, but burnt out.

Snoot, can you not use the loadlot cheat to get to the secret vacation lots?

Nope.  I have tried that several times, but nothing happens.  I think I must be doing something wrong, which I posted here (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,9750.0.html), but I never got an answer.  Meh.  I eventually gave up out of frustration.

I truely hope this gets worked out in the end. I don't hate the hobby lots really but I do hate the fact that EA screwed up the My Muse II Arts Studio lot so that the showers cannot be used and my Sim gets attacked by other Sims wanting to "Talk Through" the teddies.

Twojeffs' "Teddy Bear No Talk Through" (http://www.simbology.com/smf/index.php/topic,11.0.html) works wonders. You could also use the dorm tools to sell the teddies on arrival.

Cheers for that sloppyhousewife.

While I'm here I will say that I have now used this method to successfully correct the My Muse II - Art Studio shower. I didn't have to alter the instance number with SimPE though. It was the same after the alteration as it was before. I don't know if it makes any difference but I had a buy,build mode enabler package in my downloads folder.

I wonder why they (EAxis) did not do it like the Secret Lots in University. U can build @ them, u have a own moneybag for the Lot, u can left things from your inventory . Everything could be Perfect.

Is it possible to merge the way of University Secret Lots in the Hobby secret lots? 

If it is, it's about 40 miles beyond me. That's not saying much, of course.

Any progress on this?  New methods?  A tutorial on how to do Pescado's method?  Anything?

I'm wondering if there's a way to unhide & then rehide (if necessary) the secret neighbourhood that the hobby lots are in.

You'd have to ask Pescado. I tried several other methodologies, but failed miserably in my attempts to create perfectly clean lots without going through Pescado's surgery methods. I am now thoroughly pissed off at hobby lots and doubt I will ever forgive them.

Is there a cheat like ChangeLotZoning for secret hobby lots?
If so, what's the problem? The fact that you cannot save secret lots is that you have to save all your modification while the lot is classified as community. I do this all the time with secret vacation lots though it is a big nonsense. Who need secret lots?
After you modified a secret lot you change the lot zoning and simply leave. It is reclassified automatically even if you cannot save it.
I use to create these dull lots as community lot and transfer them to the lots bin before I change lot zoning. So, I can reuse them if I want. If you change lot zoning and transfer them to the lot bin, they disappear as soon as you place them in a hood.
I don't know what's the point with those lots. And the worst is that I heard on an Eaxis interview that "Some players LOVE them"

Who the hell? They just occupy space where I could place more homes. I would like to make them visible to delete all of them.
The information to do so, is sure in the lot data. The hell is that SimPe cannot read any of them.

Hobby lots don't occupy space where you could place more homes.  They are all in a secret hobby subhood - and this is the problem.  There is a cheat, but we can't use it as we can't get to the hobby subhood.

If hobby subhoods could be made visible, I'm sure someone more awesome than me would make an empty replacement subhood that we could go into to create our own hobby lots.

I wonder if hobby lots are hidden in their subhood.  Or did EAxis figure hiding the entire subhood was enough to keep us from fixing their borked crappy lots?

As far as I can tell, they aren't hidden within the subhood, but the subhood is just hidden. Hiding the subhood is beyond dumb. If the subhood could be hacked to be shown, well...that would just solve everything. I tried some things in SimPE back when I was first trying to crack them, but it didn't work.

It would be cool if someone *hintPescadohint* would attach his subhood. His method is a bit beyond me.

I had also tried setting a lot in any 'hood or subhood to a hobby lot, with varying results. Results ranged from infinite loading screens to having the lot listed both as a normal community lot for sims who didn't have membership as well as a hobby lot for card-carriers.

Well, holy crap. I think I just figured it out. Through trial and error I found out that not only is the subhood hidden, the lots are hidden too. EAxis really didn't want these to be found out. Anyway, here is what I did:

Open SimPE and go into your neighborhood folder of choice. I used Riverblossom Hills since that is my test neighborhood. In the neighborhood's folder, find the Hobbies subhood. Mine was numbered G001_suburb003. In my main neighborhood, the subhood ended in 003 too 004, but YMMV on the number. I don't know. Regardless, you can tell by looking at the Lot Descriptions once the file is loaded because the right hood will contain the names of the hobby lots.

To unhide the hood, I went to ID Number (IDNO) (under the Resource Tree) and changed the Neighborhood Type from Suburb to Downtown. Commit, Save.

Next I went to the Lot Description (LTXT), chose a lot (I used Sue's (Secret) Kitchen) and changed the U0 from 0x00000132 (edit: the number may be 0x00000133 for some lots) to 0x00000023. Commit, save. I can't claim credit for this part. I got the idea from Argon in this thread (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,9750.0.html). I choose the 0x00000023 number because that is what the regular community lots seemed to use in the main hood.

I closed SimPE and fired up the game. Under my neighborhood chooser, Hobbies now shows up as a Downtown hood. The lot should be visible. I opened the lot, and used the cheat "changelotzoning community." Edited and saved. Then I entered the cheat "changelotzoning secrethobbylot."

I quit the game, reopened SimPE and reversed the changes I made to the IDNO and LTXT.

When I went back to test, the hobby lot was functioning correctly and my changes were still there. Stick it, EAxis. I'm not sure what would happen if you didn't rehide the lot and hood. I'll leave that for someone else to experiment with.


Addition 1: It appears that editing the hobby lot before it has been visited by a sim will cause the maven and visitors not to appear. To avoid this, make sure that any lot you edit has been visited previously.

Addition 2: Leaving Hobbies classified as a downtown subhood will cause downtownies to invite sims on outings there. Since the consequences of this are unknown, it may be best not to leave the Hobbies hood classified this way.

Please read through the rest of the discussion in this thread for more information about these issues.


edited for clarity and again to correct some information

Well dammit. Do you know how close I was? I had tried changing it to Shopping District and it wouldn't show.

When you say this:
Did you mean card-carriers could visit and non card-carriers couldn't.

Off to play with this, though I'm not sure how much I'll get done. My life is insane right now.

That was my original intention, but I didn't have that option. Maybe because I have not added a Shopping District to this hood yet. I only had University, Suburb, Dowtown, Main, and the BV ones. I choose Downtown because I didn't want any of the programming baggage that would come with Uni or a BV hood, so Dowtown was my only option. Lucky guess.

Yes. I only tested it out with one family, but the wife who had a membership had the option to go, and the husband with no membership, could not choose the lot, as normal. I also mean that the hobby maven and the bartender were there as normal. I was in a hurry and didn't try to enter a cooking contest, so things could still go wrong, but everything appeared normal.

I'm glad this has been figured out.  Now I can change seasons in the hobby lots, replace the existing lots with my own lots or downloaded lots such as Emma's, even do some neighbourhood terrain surgery (in case I want to make some of them beach lots to match my beach neighbourhood).

Thanks, this is great.

I tried this too and it worked, except one thing: The hobby-maven (Cuisine one too) wasn't there both times I visited. It was a CAS-sim-made-into-iconic-hobbyist if that makes any difference. (She wasn't initialized properly as hobbyist? I hadn't visited the club earlier in this hood so I don't know if she was there normally pre-edit. :( ) I used Inge's cat to teleport her and after that she went on as normal. Except that the first time, when asked for hobby instruction she declined and both sims got a - in their relationship (possibly cause they didn't know each other before?) Either way, she worked regularly then. Other than her though, the food judge AND the bartender were on lot correctly. But then I guess that's cause they're tied to the objects (contest table and bar, respectively) as the bartender wasn't there when the sim got on the lot, but appeared automagically some minutes later.

Another problem I encountered though was that there wouldn't be any visitors at all. In fact I started a contest, the hobby maven entered too, and so did the bartender and they stayed there chatting and the food judge going around in circles waiting for a 4th contestant for hours. :D The cat though, showed there *were* visitors there, and in fact at the beginning there was 1 girl, after some time the cat showed 1 more guest etc. They were getting there gradually, like walk-bys or something. When I made any of them selectable I couldn't queue anything for them to do (and they weren't visible on lot of course) BUT when I resetted the visitor (I think through Lot Debugger) they showed up on lot and acted normally then on.

I tried adjusting TwoJeffs Visitor Controller to see if it was its fault, but I had everything on Allow and still no visitor. I don't know if this has to do with the edit of the lot or probably tight pants. :-\

And one final note:


Some of my hobby lots had the 132 code and some had 133. My Sue's Secret Kitchen had 133 in fact, so that's what I changed it back into.

Hope I make sense, it's almost morning here and I haven't slept yet, but I was thrilled we finally seem to have a way to do this. (Until Pescado drops in and poops all over it, saying it's a bad method like the last time. :P)

I had a little more time now to actually play the lot and I didn't run into any of the problems you mentioned. I entered the cooking contest (and lost, poor Priya), got hobby instruction from the maven, had a meal, got a drink, yadayada and no errors were generated. There were also a couple of visitors on the lot. I have the visitor controller in my downloads, but I did not have one on the lot, so I don't know if that's the problem or not.

You're right. My kitchen did have a U0 number ending in 133. This was the end of a long process of experimentation, so I thought that I had accidently changed it at some point since the other secret lots were 132. But when I changed it back from 023, I did set it at 132. Maybe that is making the difference?

I hope El Presidente doesn't poop all over it; I was pretty excited about figuring this out. Poop is messy.

OK, obvious, but 'hood number is not constant. Mine is NXXX_Suburb004. You are missing an EP, aren't you leaths?
I tested with Games of Glory.

• Made changes to 'hood ID Number as well as to lot description.
• Hobby 'hood was not able to be chosen from initial screen.
• From main 'hood map, I could choose the downtown 'hood, Hobbies.
• Games of Glory showed correctly.
• I changed lot type to community. Added statue. Saved. Changed to secrethobbylot.
• Went back to main 'hood and had a sim who had membership walk to the lot.
• Sim arrived, however, no other sims showed. I have several other playables with Games lot membership, plus the maven.
• Changed U0 to ......132 in the lot description. Did not unhide hobby 'hood.
• Again, sim was able to visit lot. Again, no other sims showed.
• Changed ID no. for the 'hood to Suburb.
• Again, sim was able to visit lot. Again, no other sims showed.

Now, I tried taking the sim to a different hobby lot (Dreamy Fields) which hadn't been edited. He arrived, and the hobby maven and three other sims, including two playables, were already on the lot.

So...leaths. Did you have any other sims arrive on the hobby lot you tested? I guess the next step is to test it on Dreamy Fields.

Ok, with Dreamy Fields, under all configurations (both lot & 'hood changed, only 'hood changed, only lot changed, both back to normal) I had maven and sims. So apparently my games lot is screwed up for some other reason.

Oops. I don't have Pets. I should've mentioned that, but I didn't think about it. I glanced at my main hood folder and the hobby hood there is number 004, so it may just depend on the order that the subhoods were added.

I couldn't sleep tonight so I decided to try this out some more. I took a sim to the Games of Glory lot and the art hobby lot before ever editing them. In both lots there were 2 visitors plus the maven. I shut down the game and edited them the same way as before but didn't rehide them afterwards. I took the same sim back and the same visitors were there along with the maven.

The games hobby lot may very well be borked though, because the other sims could not join the SSX3 competition. They would just turn the computer on, look at for a second, get up, move to another computer, lather, rinse, repeat.

On the plus side, I think it may be fine to leave the hood and lots unhidden. Even with them unhidden, the other sim in the household with no membership card could not access them. If it really doesn't hurt anything to leave them visible, that will make it very easy to edit them without having to go through SimPE each time.

First, kudos to leaths for figuring this out!!!


I have to second this theory. I just played around with this method for editing hobby lots, and had the following results...

1. Peerless Park: nature maven created in CAS and turned into maven using townie gun.

Changed hobby subhood to downtown in SimPE and unhid hobby lot.
Loaded game; changed lotzoning, Awesome-ized the bathrooms.
Turned lot back to secret hobby lot (hobby hood visible, lot visible as well)
Took sim to park (which displayed properly under 'Hobbies')
Lot loaded. Received message from maven, but maven was not physically present. No other sims in residence, even though quite a few have membership to Peerless Park. However, it was late at night, which may have played a part.
Returned sim to home lot, quit, etc.
Loaded SimPE.
Changed Lot Description to re-hide it. (thus hobby hood visible, but lot hidden)
Reloaded game, took sim back to park: maven did not show. Returned sim to home lot, quit, etc.
Loaded SimPE. Changed back to Suburb and Lot Description back to 0x00000133. (thus hobby hood hidden, but lot visible)
Reloaded game, took sim back to park: maven still did not show.


2. Games of Glory: games maven generated by the game.

Made no changes to lot, took sim to lot. (Hobby hood hidden)
Lot loaded, received message from maven. Maven physically present and a couple other sims as well, everything working as expected.
Quit game, loaded SimPE.
Changed hood IDNO to Downtown. (Hobby hood visible)
Loaded game.
Lot loaded, maven physically present and a couple other sims as well, everything working as expected. Took sim home, quit game.
Loaded SimPE: changed Lot Description to 0x00000023. (Lot visible from hood)
Lot loaded, maven physically present and a couple other sims as well, everything working as expected. Took sim home, then loaded Hobby subhood.
Edited lot, took sim to lot, maven physically present and same two sims, everything working as expected.


3. Dreamy Fields: sports maven generated by the game.

Made no changes to lot, took sim to lot. (Hobby hood visible)
Lot loaded, maven physically present and a couple other sims as well, everything working as expected. Took sim home, quit game.
Loaded SimPE: changed Lot Description to 0x00000023. (Lot visible from hood)
Lot loaded, maven physically present and a couple other sims as well, everything working as expected. Took sim home, then loaded Hobby subhood.
Edited lot, took sim to lot, maven physically present and same two sims, everything working as expected.


I haven't tested all hobby lots, but I only have one maven that was initially generated in CAS, and so far that's the only lot that doesn't work as expected. Of course, I neglected to test it before I started messing with this process, so I can't say whether it was already borken.  :-\

And I agree, from my findings I think it will probably be fine to leave the lots and subhood unhidden. You probably don't really need to change to Lot Description, but use the loadlot cheat instead. Haven't tried it yet, but it worked when I edited the secret vacation lots. However, if you're going into SimPE anyway, it's a trivial change and you might as well do it to save trying to remember the exact lot name later. :)

I'm not saying that wouldn't work, but with the hood unhidden and lots hidden, I could not get the loadlot cheat to work at all. It's very possible that I was doing something wrong, though.

Also, if anyone gets to the point where they can replace a lot with a new one instead of just remodeling, I'd like to hear how it was done.

^ I can't get loadlot to work either, and not for ordinary community or residential lots actually, I tried loadlot lotname / "lotname" / [lotname] / ["lotname"] / <lotname> / <"lotname"> / "<lotname>" ( :P ) and nothing would work. (I have a high suspicion it's my fault and I actually did it wrong but maybe the cheat doesn't work for some of us?)


Roux, the lots that were working 100% normally for you, did they have Hobby Mavens created by the game via NPC-gun (a.k.a. Generate Hobby Maven\Etc) or you didn't have empty templates at all? The games original templates have 3 mavens for each hobby, maybe if you only have 1 (like in my game, or apparently the 1 lot that you couldn't get to work normally either) it doesn't work all the time? (I only tested that lot twice so maybe it *would* work at other random times)

Don't know if I'm making sense, I mean maybe the game tries to choose 1 out of 3 randomly to be on the lot, but if you have only 1 the other 2 places are unoccupied so nobody shows up? :-\ Although like you said, there *was* a pop-up greeting by the (only) hobby maven upon arrival on the lot.

Hmmm... it should work on regular res or comm lots. I believe the proper format is:  loadlot <lot name> loadlot "lot name" If there are spaces in the lot name, they need to be included, I think. (It's been awhile since I tried - I'll fire up the game to check and see if it works.) Yes, the cheat still worked on a regular community lot, and it also worked on a hidden secret hobby lot.

Good question, and it brings up an interesting scenario... I originally used an empty hobby template, and spawned mavens with the townie gun. Saved between each one, figured they were all good. But I had difficulty spawning a Nature maven with the gun. Can't remember what the problem was, but it wasn't working. So I ended up making her in CAS, putting her on an empty lot, and then using the townie gun to make her the Nature maven.

This is the interesting part. Once I finally got a sim with high enough enthusiasm in... let's say Cuisine... to get invited to the hobby lot (or whatever it is that first gets notification from the maven) the game did not recognize the Cuisine maven that I had spawned with the townie gun. Instead, it generated a *new* Cuisine maven, but of course NOT in the proper Cuisine maven outfit or anything. The second maven was the one present at Sue's Secret Kitchen. This happened with all the mavens *except* the Nature maven. The Nature maven is still technically the one I made in CAS and turned into the maven. Yet, that's the only secret hobby lot so far that isn't working.

(If anything I've written above is unclear, let me know and I'll try to better summarize it.  :) )

The 9 mavens that I spawned with the townie gun... I think I summoned them to a lot and made them regular townies with the teleporter cat once I saw the game making more mavens. But I'm concerned about the maven-making functionality in the townie gun.

Edit: to fix error in loadlot stuff, and then again for clarity. :)

You mean, for example, I should type exactly the text in bold here: loadlot <Peerless Park> if I want it to load Peerless Park? I tried to get the cheat to work with FM in Downtown cause it's the easiest name of a lot I could find, and nothing worked. I'm sure I had tried loadlot <FM> too. Or (big "or" here :D) did it have to do with being Downtown while trying to use the cheat? Do I have to be in the main neighborhood maybe?


No need to rephrase, I understood you perfectly. :) There's a possibility I guess that the function of the gun for hobby mavens *is* kinda broken, I think it was (or still is?) needed for a fix by Argon for it to create BV locals correctly, maybe similar situation here?

(BTW, do you have antiredundancy from Pescado's hacks? It should stop the game from creating more (unnecessary) mavens and other npcs)

See edited post above. Just make sure you're typing the name of the lot exactly as it appears: capital letters, punctuation, spaces. You do have to be in the proper subhood to load a lot in it. So to load FM, you have to load Downtown first, and then enter the cheat there.


Yep, antiredundancy is in. Probably should have reported it at the time, but I just figured I was doin' it wrong.  :-\ Still a possibility that I haven't ruled out.



Edit: Okay, I just did some more testing, and I think I have figured out why some of my hobby lots are not working. The lots that work are ones that were initialized before any changes were made to them. This leads me to believe that my previous statement was false, and rather it seems that before one can make any changes to the lot, you must send a sim to the lot at least once to insure the lot gets assigned appropriately as the secret hobby lot.

Here's what happened:
I (foolishly) went into my game and made modifications to all the other secret hobby lots. I then took a sim to Sue's Secret Kitchen. The maven gave the message, but didn't appear. Food judge and bartender showed up, but they are tied to objects. No other sims were on the lot, even though I know for a fact that other sims are members. Perplexed, I summoned the maven to the lot. The maven was able to give hobby instruction and acted normally. Took sim home and sent him to lot again. Same as before, so I took him home again. Tried it with another lot and another sim (Arts & Crafts Studio). Again, same experience as with Sue's Secret Kitchen. Quit the game.

I went back into SimPE, re-hid all lots and the hobby hood. Loaded game again and took sims to visit two other hobby lots, both of which had already had buy/build changes made, and neither of which had already been visited. Neither lot functioned properly. My Games and Sports hobby lots are still functioning properly, and upon re-reading my earlier test, both of those lots had been loaded at least once with no buy/build changes made.

I'm going to do some further testing in another neighborhood, since I've already edited all these lots. It may take me a little while, though, so anyone who's willing, please go ahead and test. I'd like to know whether you get the same results as I did.

Hmm. That's interesting. I don't believe I'd had any other sims ever go to a hobby lot in my neighborhood excepting Sue's Secret Kitchen, and Dreamy Fields did work...Games of Glory did not (maven & visitor-wise). Of course I could be wrong....I started this 'hood on April 8th.

I have antiredundancy and all other noregen hacks. Mavens were not created with the gun, I actually didn't even know who my games and sports mavens were until I saw the message upon lot entry.

MOAR testing, because this is now stuck in my head. Plus, I've been stupidly testing this in my main hood, and I wanted to try and fix what I did.

I remembered that none of my hobby lots had been visited before I began messing with this stuff, so I thought I'd try replacing one of the erroneous lots with a backup, just to see what would happen. At the backup point, the hobby lots had never been visited by sims and I had not changed them in any way.

1. Replaced Peerless Park lot file with backup.
2. Loaded game, took two different sims to Peerless Park. One sim was the original test subject, the other was just another sim with membership. Lot loaded properly, with hobby maven and 2 other lot members.
3. Quit game, loaded SimPE. Changed hood IDN0 to Downtown.
4. Loaded game, took original test sim to Peerless Park. Lot loaded properly, with hobby maven and 2 other lot members.
5. Quit game, loaded SimPE, Changed lot value U0 to 0x00000023. Lot itself still had not been edited in any way.
6. Loaded game, took original test sim to Peerless Park. Lot loaded properly, with hobby maven and 2 other lot members.
7. Loaded hobby subhood and lot. Changed zoning to community, made a small build change to lot, saved, and then changed zoning back to hobby lot.
8. Returned to main hood. Took original test sim, everything fine, etc.
9. Took a third sim, one who had never been to Peerless Park before, to the lot. Maven & 2 members appeared.

Repeated process with a backup of My Muse II - Art Studio. Received identical results as with Peerless Park.

The cool thing is, it looks like even when the lot was screwy, I got it to work again by restoring a backup of the lot file. And the Nature maven was the one I made in CAS and changed to maven with the townie gun, so that process seems to work as well (still not sure about using the townie gun to create them, tho'). I'm going to keep at this, and if I run into any issues I'll report back.

Zazazu, I re-read your earlier post, and I think our results concur. You modified Games of Glory, then took sims there, and it didn't work. But Dreamy Fields, which you did not change, worked just fine. It would help if you could clearly remember whether or not you took sims to Games of Glory before modifying the lot, though. But try restoring a backup of Games of Glory, take a sim there, and see if the lot works.

You know what, I had a very obvious brainfart.

I did visit Dreamy Fields before modifying. Since it wasn't before I started testing, I forgot it. Duh.

This is interesting. I can say for sure that for the three lots I tested, a sim had been to them all pre-edit. If I have time tomorrow, I'll edit one before taking a sim there and see what happens. Since I'm using my test neighborhood, I don't care too much about screwing something up. I'll report back.

I successfully changed the Hobbies hood and the lots so that they are all visible. Was so good to get rid of all the silly hood decos, just to begin with! They surely do not fit with my medieval theme. Then I tried to a)move a hobby lot to lot bin (I had some idea maybe they could be placed and used in other hoods?) but that was not a good idea. Seemed to work, but lot vanished, not be found in lot bin. Same when I packed two hobby lots to file, and later installed them. They installed, but are totally invisible in Lot Bin.

Just thought you should know - maybe there is something you could edit to in simpe to make them show up? What I wanted to do, really, was to have those hobby lots in my uni hood.. of course an edited version of them.

Oh, and after I made the hood/lots visible I sent a sim to visit the Muse Dance Place - which no sim never visited before. Everything seemed to work fine, I am not sure about the maven though, as I forgot the name of this particular maven. But visitors showed and the sims had a blast.

Did you try looking for them in the "specialty lots" section?

ingeli, do you want them to be secret lots in Uni, or just regular community lots? I am doubtful that secret hobby lots would work in Uni, because Uni lots have a different timer. But then, people are having success with a main 'hood Uni, as seen in Lion's thread (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,12165.0.html).

But you might want to try changing the zoning to community before binning it. Then place lot (if it appears in the catalog, that is), load it, make your changes, and change zoning to hobby lot. 

One fun note from last night's play session - one of my sims got a call from a Downtownie, who invited him on an outing to "Hobbies." I was not brave enough to accept the invitation and see what would happen. Just wanted to share so others will know it's a possibility if you keep the IDNO as Downtown.

My theory on the first-time loading seems to be holding up. I'll do a bit more testing on this initialization thing in a test hood. I would appreciate more findings from other players, especially if they're contradictory. Once its validity is reasonably assured, I'll summarize, edit and re-post leaths's original instructions.

I had the same thing last night. One of the great-grandkids asked Terrence to meet him down at Hobbies. This wouldn't happen if you changed it to something different, like Shopping District.

Here is what I found today. I went into SimPE and unhid two lots that I knew no sims had visited previously. (I used the dance studio and Platinum Gym.) My Hobbies subhood was already unhidden from the last testing session.

I only went in game and edited Platinum Gym.

Results: The dance studio was working properly with the maven and vistors there. Platinum Gym was not working--no maven, no visitors. Therefore, I suspect the issue is not with changing the lot descriptors but with rezoning as "community" before the lot is initialized as a hobby lot.

I'll edit my original post with this information and the outings issue.

I was thinking the same, and just tested, it worked. Now I have a Muse Dance place in my lot bin, and a brand new one in the Uni Hood. Will play test it later.

I'm just waiting on an awesome one right now to approve this new method. If he gives the go-ahead, I'll make stronger notes on the first page.

I'm very grateful to everyone who continued working on this.  I'm excited by the results.  I've started tinkering around with this method and having a lot of fun.

I wanted to add my one tiny bit of data.  I checked Bluewater and it seems shopping districts have the INDO "Suburb," same as the Hobbies neighborhood.  That meant there wasn't much chance of making it into a shopping district.  Just to make sure I tried the experiment.  I left the INDO as "suburb" and changed the LTXT. 

When I played, the Hobbies neighborhood was still hidden.  It couldn't be accessed from the Shopping Neighborhood button.  So unless someone learns more about how the neighborhood is marked to be hidden, making it temporarily into a Downtown is the best option.

Maybe try manually replacing them? Obviously try doing this on a test neighborhood first. If it does work, you may wish to overwrite the template.