More Awesome Than You!

So... yeah. I'm thinking about finally getting off my arse and Arr!ing Seasons. The only problem is that I have no idea what it is that I need to update.

I figure that I don't need to update any of the millions of CC that I have, like clothes or non-hacked objects, right? More importantly, though, I have some really old abandoned mods like Merola's Mirror and some Squinge crap, and I have no idea if it'll work, or what I need to do to fix it.

I apologise for making my previously hopefully-somewhat-well-hidden stupidity glaringly obvious  ::)...

   Ahh, a question i can help answer (as Seasons is my latest EP).  For Squinge's stuff, he updated alot of it up to Seasons, so the only problem is actually finding it.  His stuff is archived in several places, one of which is Sims2Graveyard.  Also do google searches.  For your other mods, go back to their sites, read user comments if you have to. 
   A great tutorial at MTS2 for what to do before installing a new EP  http://www.modthesims2.com/wiki.php?title=Game_Help:Preparing_for_the_Next_Expansion (http://www.modthesims2.com/wiki.php?title=Game_Help:Preparing_for_the_Next_Expansion)

If you have BV or FT loaded already (as I did before I got Seasons), you don't even have to update your hacks.  You just add the seasons specific ones.

If Seasons will be your "latest" EP, the best thing is to remove all hacks from your downloads, and reinstall a fresh batch from the Seasons Director's cut.  Don't try to mix and match or overwrite as this often leads to tight pants.

I always take my Downloads folder out before I install a new EP, but I understand that other people do not necessarily do this.  I test all new EP installs on a vanilla game and then exit without saving.  Then I put back the Downloads.  Make sure you back up any "in play" hoods before you do anything.

So, I'm not ready to install it just yet, but I figured that since I had time I might as well at least download it to have for when I am ready. However, there aren't very many cracked Seasons versions at The Pirate Bay, and, me being unawesome and all, I'm not sure what kind of quality those that are there are. As such, I may require a tiny bit more assistance - for those of you that Arr!'ed Seasons, what version did you use?

I always download games from moviex.info  You have to register there, but at least you can count on the quality of the downloads.

Anything by Vitality is a safe choice, I believe.

I'm pretty sure I got a Vitality torrent of Seasons from Mininova.

My suggestion is to check the comments and the amount of seeds a torrent has. Usually if a torrent is bad, people will post comments saying it is so. Go for the best, most seeded torrent. (note: If I am wrong about this, let me know) I also agree with others about Vitality.

RELOADED have been good to me.

I have heard that Vitality torrents are reliable, but that problem is you have to be certain it is Vitality.  Some scammers will put Vitality in the torrent name and it isn't actually Vitality.  You have to screen comments cautiously. So many comments are made by complete idiots.  I only read comments that are intelligently written and seem credible.  Beyond that, some uploaders will use sock accounts and comment on their own torrents to scam people.  If there is no comments or even one negative comment, I personally would not download it.

I don't know much about the pirating scene, but I think that anyone who tries to add the Vitality name (or other well-known name) to their crack will probably learn very quickly that it is not a good idea to piss off people who are good at cracking software security.  If they can crack software security, they can probably crack system security too.

If you're really paranoid, Demonoid I believe is one of the safest torrent site, they don't have any fake ones. TPB also remove fake torrents pretty quick, AFAIK. ;) For the groups, Vitality, RELOADED, Hatred, Fairlight are the ones I trust :P

There are usually at least two such torrents. If they differ in size significantly, something is wrong. Also, check for the NFO.

Well, it's all done now. Everything went smoothly, except that I play in UK English for the sake of the 24 hour clock, and the torrented version defaulted to US English, which means that I got the shat-upon-names bug, but luckily I'm paranoid and kept a backup, even if it means that some time I should be spending working will be spent fixing the game. :D

So... I've got Seasons installed and working fine, so I decided I might as well take  a leap and install BV and maybe FT as well. These are my concerns, though:

I have Squinge stuff. I don't know if it's safe to use or not. It isn't much... SavageNoRelChange and SpyOnNeighbours.

I have Crammyboy's nudist mod. It's been updated for BV and FT, but apparently the FT version I found conflicts with an Awesome Hack, and I can't have that. I can live without it, I suppose, but I'd rather not.

Umm... I guess these are my only major concerns at the moment. As you can see, I'm not exactly used to this whole going-through-everything-in-Downloads-and-making-sure-it's-all-up-to-date thing... I played with Pets as my latest expansion for practically eternity.

I used to have the nudist hack, but decided I didn't need whole families of outgoing sims running around the house nekkid all the time.  ACR allows for nude woohoo anyway.  Just putting this out for consideration.