More Awesome Than You!

I've got the OFB disk. The guide is on order at work and there's plenty of information on the net as well, even if it's not as tidy as I'd like it.

I can move my whole Sims 2 folder somewhere else, and learn the ropes and check for bugs in test neighborhood in a vanilla game. I have some notion of how to test the small number of hacks I use that aren't from here or Simlogical and probably won't be diffed. I can move custom content back in groups and do some testing and cleanup at the same time.

With my real neighborhoods backed up, I can even copy them over for more testing once I'm sure the test hood is working, and then not have to live with the results of the testing when it's time to play for real. And if it's just too buggy or I decide I can't do without some particular hack, I can always uninstall and reinstall and pick up from where I left off with my backups.

Yeah, really tempted. I was going to wait either until I got the guide or until more hacks were updated or both, although so many of the smaller MATY hacks (and I don't use many of the big ones) don't even need updating. Maybe I'll sit down and actually check compatibility on everything I personally use one at a time tomorrow or something, see if there's anything I already know I can't live without that I have to wait for.

I didn't risk any of my neighbourhoods either!  And like you, if necessary I'll uninstall/reinstall without OFB if I'm not happy with it - and so far I'm very much in two minds about it.

I'm using my normal neighbourhood, but seriously thinking about going back to my back-up.  I don't really want all the extra families, especially as they come complete with loads of deadies.  And of course there's all the botched DNA, not to mention the ones with no memories.  One of the elders (the one living with her son) had a fear of her husband cheating when I went into her lot and he was dead.  She had no memory of it, though - in fact, she had no memory of anything.  I just don't feel inclined to wait for SimPE and add them all, but I hate playing with them missing.

What I will probably do is get all the business lots out of the business neighbourhood and add clean copies to my main neighbourhood as there's plenty of room.  If I leave them all, it'll end-up with none of them going to their businesses after the novelty wears off because I get too fed-up waiting for them to load.  At least if they're in the same neighbourhood it cuts that down.  I also don't want all those new townies because they're the ugliest lot I've ever come across.  Nearly all the ones I've seen so far have whopping great lips and I am sick of giving them surgery.

Even the playables are about the worst ever!  Once I've got the hang of it I shall almost certainly just ditch this game and use a custom hood and deleteallcharacters, then perhaps I'll experiment with making a few of my own townies.  this is really the first EP where, in a sense, they are necessary, since you don't really want to be employing playable sims as shop assistants!

Playable sims are the best to hire if they have no skills and no badges.

Even teen towniees will be much more per hour than a playable sim you hire for 15$ an hour and then train to a min of bronze in one job.

Then again, I "seed" my hoods with things like trailer parks, brothels, catholic churches, juvinile detention halls, homeless people, and other horrible things like that so I have custom made "towniees" that along with the base ones.

The trailer park makes a great source of cheap unskilled labor, the only kind needed in 90% of ofb!

Why don't you try using CAS face template replacements?  Just install the replacements in your downloads folder & delete the CASThumnails (found via Thumbnails) so it will generate a new one, prior to launching your new neighbourhood.  The townies will then be generated using the new templates and not the old ones.  I actually interact with the townies now, rather than just ignoring them.  It saves having to do individual surgery on them.


AllenABQ has a complete set of new templates which are realistic but not over the top http://www.modthesims2.com/download.php?f=342

DocDoofus has a more model-ish style look http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=130190&highlight=cas-face-replacements

The face templates don't work for some reason, I have them in my game.  I think these townies are already present on the cd so they go in automatically.  Quite why they had to be so ugly is anyone's guess.

Oh I can't be arsed with all that pussy-footing around. I did actually back up my hoods ... but only so that I have something to go back to if OFB turns my whole installation in a FBVFS. I suppose it's mostly because I find the whole legacy thing a bit tedious by the time a family gets around to the fourth generation. I can only attempt to imagine what it is like to have a 8th or 9th generation ... I've usually gotten way sidetracked long before then.

I'm doing some storytelling projects, so I don't just want to make sure I have a backup, I also want to make sure that future gameplay with those families isn't plagued by glitches. Granted, the projects are pretty new, but one of the storylines managed to one-up my actual plans rather amusingly and I'd hate to have to rush through catching up the families to match with where my existing snapshots left off and hope I didn't have too much trouble getting them to the same point. (Besides, I don't want to play with piles of glitches either way.)