More Awesome Than You!

There is now a tutorial that anyone can follow to create a merged neighborhood.

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=4480.0

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COMPATIBILITY: This neighborhood requires The Sims 2 and the Nightlife expansion pack. It does not require any other expansion packs, but is, of course, compatible with all of them.

To install, place the Neighborhoods folder into \My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\ (don't forget to save/backup the one you already have there).

The file is 70MB in size and was zipped with 7Zip. Here is a full list of programs that can unzip .7z archives: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7z#External_links

Download:

http://www.fileplanet.com/173169/170000/fileinfo/MERGED-Pleasantview,-Strangetown,-Veronaville (http://www.fileplanet.com/173169/170000/fileinfo/MERGED-Pleasantview,-Strangetown,-Veronaville)

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=9MIT8DG9 (http://www.megaupload.com/?d=9MIT8DG9)

When you enter the neighborhood, you're in Pleasantview. Selecting the Downtown button gives you the option to enter Downtown, Strangetown, and Veronaville.

In addition, I have taken the time to fix the many problems that the Maxis-made sims have, such as incomplete, missing, or incorrect DNA, incorrect surnames (for example, the Singles and the Summerdreams), missing memories, and other such problems. The Tricou family had to be resurrected (they're in the sims bin now) because they contained corrupted death token that would cause such nasty glitches are inheriting money from a living toddler. Bella Goth had to be restored to the Goth family (alive), because no matter what I did I could not get her restored memories to stick otherwise. Lastly, all townies and NPCs have been purged, to keep the number of sims manageable and to let you create better townies and NPCs through default facial template replacements and other such mods.

The picture albums are all gone... I completely lost patience with rebuilding them from scratch. You can fix them yourself. All the pictures are located in C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2\TSData\Res\UserData\Storytelling

WARNING: Due to the method of merging the neighborhoods, you must NEVER attempt to attach another downtown to this neighborhood. You may still attach Universities and Blue Water, but not Downtown. Doing so results in a glitch that corrupts the entire neighborhood. For this reason I have included the default Maxis Downtown as part of this neighborhood... hopefully you have no reason to want to add another downtown!

(http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c129/saramkirk/mergedhood.jpg)

Sara, thanks for all the hard work, you rock!

I forgot to take some screenshots for you guys, but there's already a picture in http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=4151.0 (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=4151.0) that looks pretty much like what you'll get. When you enter the neighborhood, you're in Pleasantview. Selecting the Downtown button gives you the option to enter Downtown, Strangetown, and Veronaville. There are no Universities added and no Business district. You might want to wait for my cleaned up template (uploading now), so you don't dump a billion sims into this neighborhood when you attach them.

Downloading. You should make a thread in Peasantry.

Sara, if it's OK with you, I am going to split this thread and move your project to Peasantry.  Simsbaby is right.  Lemme know.

I would so download if I didnt already have my 3-in-1 Hood and had a second Pleasantview starting from the beginning.  I just deleted 4 custom neighborhoods today.



This is the way I had to resurrect Bella when Nightlife came out.

Good to know. I haven't resurrected her since before Uni EP.

Very Cool, I downloaded and look forward to trying it out  ;D

Great timing too since I've been trying to decide if I would just start over since I haven't played in a month and a half  :D

Call me foolish, but I figured I had to try. I added an additional downtown, starting from a SC4 Terrain (I forget which one - one of the Maxis ones, I think), and everything seems to be completely fine. Nothing blew up in my face.

I did then delete it, as I don't really need a second downtown right now...

Cleaned up template? What does that mean, precisely?

Every template seems to have its own numbers that it uses. So if you have one Downtown and add another, it gets a different number. Until I figured out where to change these, I kept getting one neighborhood transplanted onto a previous one. Since I changed the Downtown numbers by hand, I figured there might still be a danger of that happening. It's good to know that nothing blew up, but I would still caution people not to do it. The one-on-top-of-another glitch is FATAL. The only thing to do after you get it is to delete everything.

Empty ones without any sims at all, or ones with only Maxis-made playable sims. The way Maxis gave them to us, each Uni adds over 100 sims to your neighborhood when you attach it. I cleaned up the templates so that each one adds only about 12 sims, or none at all.

I had them all ready, but then realized that between making them and now I had read a post that suggested deleting something else inside the files. So it will be a while longer.

about the Downtown part, if I want the real Downtowns Community Lots in my new hood, should I package them to a file first before removing my old hoods and installing this one?

The default Downtown is included with the neighborhood. You get all the lots already. :)

I hope that's what you meant. I've added a picture to the first post.

OK, I might be missing something here, but are these cleaned up templates included with this download, or are they located somewhere else?  If they're somewhere else, how do I utilize them?  I would like to attach all of the Uni's and the shopping district, but don't want the extra characters. 

Thank you so much for doing this.  It is definantly awesome!

thats good, now I don't have to load my old hood (and get tempted to keep it and play it instead)

Thank you for all your hard work! and I look forward to downloading your cleaned up templates  :)

They're not included with this. I'll be making them available separately. I still have a few things to edit, so I might not get done until tomorrow.

Using them is fairly easy. You'll just go to the right folder under C:\Program Files\EA Games\ and make a backup of the templates, then replace them with the ones you download from me. The next time you add a Uni or Downtown, you'll either get zero new characters or just the Maxis playable characters, depending on which ones you download.

Thanks SaraMK  ;D I finally managed to download it  :) I guess everyone is taking it at the moment, as it really did take a couple of hours to get......just like the good old days of dial-up. Back then I had to be careful about what I wanted, I had a 300mb allowance for the month  :)
As it is mothers day real life is going to get in the way of testing this today (bother! I could call the kids and say for mothers day give me a day to myself.....but that would be mean!)
Looking forward to the Uni templates too  :)

Thanks for the response SaraMK.  Take your time with them.  And thanks for doing this, by the way.  I'm so excited to to play this 'hood.  I haven't ever played with any of the pre-made sims yet, I've always just started fresh with a custom 'hood and my own townies & houses & such.  So I'm looking forward to this.

Ok, I am having a small problem.  Not with the 'hood I downloaded, but with my previous neighborhood #1.  I know I've seen a thread discussing this somewhere, but after a few searches, I can't find any info on it.  Since this new combined 'hood is now neighborhood #1,  I need to change my old 'hood #1 to #2.  I know that this requires renaming ALL of the files inside of it, but is that all?  If I change all filenames from N001_ to N002_ will it work correctly?  If not it is no big deal, I had just started the 'hood anyway and it doesn't have many sims in it, but if I could save it I would like to. 

shanpooter, did you try to work-around the renaming?
Before you start playing, you could move your old hood #1 to a temporary back-up folder, insert the combined hood no. 1 to the Neighbourhood folder and just the opposite when you want to play your old hood again. The let-down is that you have to restart the whole game when you want to change. If the game does not start at first, try deleting the NeighbourhoodManager file and see if it works. It should, I've done this with several hoods before. I just don't know if that technique may cause any conflicts, but so far I'm fine.


Sara, great work! It's a pity that I don't have enough time to play this new environment, but all the detailed work is appreciated.  :D

That is correct.

@ SaraMK~~I just wanted to add my voice to the chorus of appreciation ...for your patience, your time, and all your hard work. Thanks!

I have no idea. I've actually never done that. In theory it should work. I think I read somewhere that you first have to add a #2 neighborhood. Which means you have to move your old one out, load mine, add a new neighborhood, exit the game, delete the new #2 neighborhood, rename your old one to #2 and put it in. But since I've never done it, I really have no idea if that will work.

Thank you guys for the responses.  I'm gonna go ahead and use a utility to rename them.  I'll make a new neighborhood #2 just to be sure it works. 

Hi - forgive me for being a total tool, but the thing I download is called Neighborhoods.7z

How do I turn it into a neighborhoods folder?

It was zipped with 7Zip.  I don't know if regular unzippers will work, but you can download 7Zip (it's free) and use that.  it works for rar and zip and such, so it's rather useful. 

Thanks Blue.

I dream of a world...a world with an unzip program that unzips everything.  Even me.

WinRar handles .7z files just fine, and so do most other zip tools that handle multiple types of files.

The reason 7Zip was used was because it is far superior to any other archive format. Compare: 7Zip got the Neighborhoods folder down to 77MB, WinZip got a horrid 166MB, and WinRAR got 138MB. Not much else to say, huh?

Here is a full list of programs that support .7z files. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7z#External_links

http://www.tugzip.com/

Well, that one probably won't unzip you, but it WILL unzup LZH (what I got it for), RAR (what I mostly use it for), 7z, and any other format I've heard of and some that I hadn't. It doesn't appear to be able to create RAR files, though, so I suppose I'll have to pick something up for that eventually.

(Actually, I think I have 7zip on my computer, from back when I was looking for something for LZH, but TugZip won at the time.)

I use Powerarchiver. Does everything.

It's not free anymore, but I consider it worth the price.

Great job, SaraMK. Any chance of a non-OFB version? Or at least a simple tutorial for the OFB-deprived?

I'm going to try to make one that only requires TS2+NL.

Did you ever post the cleaned up Uni templates you mentioned, or did I just miss them?

Not yet. I'm done with the empty ones, so I'll post those in a short while. The cleaned up ones for Uni and NL should be ready today too. The OFB one is the one I don't think can be cleaned up, other than to completely empty it of all sims, because all the playable sims know townies and NPCs. Maxis obviously played that neighborhood extensively to get some of those businesses up to a high level.

EDIT: Posted. http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=4306.0

I just want to say that I downloaded this the other day and am totally loving it so far, though I'm only in the early stages yet.  Thanks so much, for sharing what must have taken an awful lot of work.

I fetched this strange thing and I think I like it. My interest is in Sim DNA so I checked
the DNA of some characters, Jill and Johnny Smith, Strangetown and Buttom Sommerdream, Veronaville.
I noticed that the DNA was corrected and that the Smith's was heterozygous and the Summerdream homozygouss.
That is exactly as the corrected code that Starrkist have done in another thread here.
Is it a similar correction or is it the same?

Thank you for making this.

For Strangetown characters, I used the DNA changes that were posted by baratron in this thread: http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=1423.0

For Veronaville, I fixed the DNA in whatever way made sense to me. The Summerdream kids are supposed to be adopted, so that is why they are homozygous for their skintone, eye, and hair colors. It would not make sense to make them heterozygous using the DNA of their adoptive parents.

Do you mean the complete file posted by Starrkist and hosted by Simsbaby at the end of that thread or just the examples for some of the characters posted by baratron ?


OK, I don't know Veronaville that well. I checked the wrong guy then. But there are heterozygous people in Veronaville too that you have changed. Good.  You must have put a lot of effort on this. Great!!

Just the info by baratron. I haven't looked at what Starrkist has done, although I'm sure she did a good job fixing the neighborhoods too.

After downloading and installing the neighborhood, when I go into Pleasantville I get some of the downtown lots appearing in strange locations (middle of the river, for instance) and overlapping on each other.  I have all of the listed EPs.  Did I do something wrong?

Without more info, I would say it sounds like one neighborhood has the same ID as this one. Did you already have some neighborhoods and you just added this one to them? Because that won't work.

There is definitely something wrong if that's happening.

EDIT: When you unzipped the neighborhood, did you make sure that the directory structure (folders and subfolders) was kept? Some programs just unzip all the files and dump them into one folder, disregarding subfolders.

Thanks for the response SaraMK - I moved all of my existing neighborhoods to a backup folder and yours is the only one in my neighborhoods directory.  Unrar appears to have maintained the directory structure when I uncompressed your file. 

I don't know what else it could be.

Open the Neighborhoods folder and make sure there isn't anything weird in there, like a second Neighborhoods folder. I just thought of the possibility that you used the "unzip to..." command on WinRAR, which would have created an extra Neighborhoods folder. Although I would have thought that would cause none of the neighborhoods to show up at all, not show up but be messed up.

I guess you could try reinstalling it from the beginning.

I started over with a download from another source and got the same result.  Both Downtown and Pleasantville have mixed up lots.  Veronaville and Strangetown look okay.  Oh well, it was worth a try.

Because I'm slower than the average bear.....

I just installed OFB (um, two days ago) and therefore just starting this wonderful project. I know I thanked you before for the work, SaraMK, but the results deserve another thank you! This is what I was hoping for when I first got TS2. I'm yours, forever.  :-*

I love this neighborhood! The crappy characters the game generates bug the crap out of me. Especially the townie kids the playables want to drag home from school and especially using the find-a-mate crystal ball... it always pulls up the fugliest people possible from the pool of non-playables. But it's getting to be tiresome to run gardening macros on some of the bigger lots, and I can't call for a gardener because there aren't any.

Does anyone know where there might be a hack or command line entry to generate npc's only? Or a hacked object that you can use to turn sims into npc's? I don't want any of the other craptacular characters, but a few of the npc's might be nice :)

The new version of antiredundancy will create one (1) NPC of the needed type if there aren't any.

Thanks miros!  ;D

Quick question about fixing Maxis's broke sims...

I know how to correct the DNA of the Strangetown/Veronaville sims, but how do I go about fixing Olivia's bugged pregnancy if I bring her back from the dead?  Also, are there any other sim-related problems I need to look out for?

(I know that you fixed this in your original download, SaraMK, but if I wanted to combine the neighborhoods on my own, how would I go about fixing the pregnancy and any other issues?)

Olivia is not actually pregnant, she's just marked as such. Uncheck her pregnancy flags (under "other" from her entry in the Sim browser). To fix her pregnancy otherwise you would have to create a pregnancy token, which I don't know how to do.

Other problems that occur are that Sims lack memories, are not married to their spouses, missing hair meshes, garbage info ("bad townie bug"), etc..

Ok, I sort of know how to create the pregnancy token - at least, I know how to actually create it, but I don't know what info to set it for so that Claudio (or whatever his name is) is the actual father, and so Olivia shows up as the mother.  Sara, if you're still around and reading this thread, can you help a brutha out?

No idea, actually. This is the sort of thing I'd use the InSIM for. She isn't really pregnant, like Jordi said, so all you need to do is get her pregnant by any method you want.

Updated.

The new version requires only The Sims 2 and Nightlife. Also, all the DNA and other Maxis stupidities are fixed.

I just have a quick question.  Can I delete Veronaville, or could that cause problems also?

Thanks!

No. You would get a ton of junk files in the neighborhood due to the deleted Veronaville sims, and the neighborhood will explode in a BFBVFS.

If you don't want Veronaville, you should follow my tutorial and create your own merged neighborhood without Veronaville.

Glad I didn't try it, but I will try the tutorial!  Thanks!

Hey SaraMK.  I wasn't sure which thread to post this request in... but since you have a knack for this sort of thing, I thought I'd try this one.  Hopefully you won't hold my taste in uber excessively cutesy games against me. :D

I was wondering if it's possible to convert the new Riverblossoms Hills into a sub hood?

I suppose I could actually play the different hood, but meh, I feel like I've invested so much in my one hood.

Incidentally... can someone point me to the thread(s) or somewhere where there might be a fixed Strangetown and Veronaville hoods?  With like fixed sim data and what not?  I vaguely recall reading that someone might fix em, but I never followed up on it.  I see that you had them fixed for this merged hood project, but are there fixed versions of those base hoods themselves (non-merged)?

Ste

I don't have the EP yet, so I haven't had a chance to look at it. It's just a regular neighborhood, right?

Well, it's certainly possible, but the method would differ depending on whether you want to attach it to a merged neighborhood that you are already in the process of playing, or if you are creating a merged neighborhood from scratch and just want to include the new one.

If you are starting from scratch, simply add the necessary steps to the process. All the steps would be the same, except you'rer doing more of them. So, right from the start, you would attach four Downtowns to Pleasantview rather than three.

If you want to add it to an existing merged neighborhood that has already been played, it's a little more complicated, since, remember, you cannot safely add another Downtown. Here are two methods that I  would consider using. For ANY method, please make a complete backup of your Neighborhoods folder, since this (a) Has not been tested, (b) A small mistake could destroy the neighborhood, (c) The neighborhood may spontaneously suffer the "one over the other" fatal glitch. Backups are your friends!

METHOD 1: Use a different Sub-Hood type:  You can't use Downtown anymore, but if you have the OFB expansion pack you can safely use the OFB sub-hood instead.

VARIATION 1: You do not already have the OFB sub-hood attached, but think you might want to attach it either now or in the future. It's best to attach it now and not have to worry about it again. Make a full backup of your entire Neighborhoods folder at this time. Then attach a second (custom) OFB sub-hood. Exit the game.

Rip out Number ID from the custom sub-hood's file. Delete the entire Neighborhoods folder. Put in a copy of the backup you made earlier. Remove the OFB sub-hood file temporarily (like to the Desktop).

Go to Program Files and find the OFB sub-hood template. Rip out the Number ID. Find the Riverblossom neighborhood template. Make a copy. Open the copy in SimPE and replace the Number ID with the one from the OFB sub-hood. Now swap the OFB template with Riverblossom (keep the OFB template safe, of course). You will need to use some kind of bulk-renaming program to rename all files and folders so the names match that of the original OFB template.

Run the game and attach the OFB sub-hood (which should now be Riverblossom) to your neighborhood. Exit the game.

Open the Riverblossom sub-hood and replace the Number ID with the one ripped out of the custom sub-hood you made at the beginning. Now change the number of the file from 001 to 002. Find the original sub-hood that you removed temporarily at the beginning, and put it back in.

VARIATION 2:  You already have the OFB sub-hood attached. Follow the directions for Variation 1 starting with "Make a full backup."

VARIATION 3:  You do not already have the OFB sub-hood attached, and you are sure that you will NEVER want to attach it. Follow the directions for Variation 1 starting with "Go to Program Files." Stop when you get to "Exit the game." That should be all you need to do.

METHOD 2: If you only have Nightlife, Method 1 is not an option. You will need to very carefully work with what you have. Caution: backups are extremely important! This method has a rather high chance of totally blowing up the neighborhood. You are basically going to take a chance on it working. The way I understand the theory of merging neighborhoods, this method should  work fine.

I will assume that you are working with the standard Pleasantview (base) + Downtown + Veronaville + Strangetown combination that my original tutorial helped you to create, or which you downloaded from me. However, if you have fewer sub-hoods attached to Pleasantview, it doesn't matter.

Remove your Neighborhoods folder (containing your merged neighborhood) and allow the game to generate a new game set. Enter Pleasantview (or any neighborhood, actually) and attach FOUR Downtowns. Exit the game. Open each Downtown (N00#_Downtown00#.package) in SimPE and rip out Number ID from each one, saving them to folders called 1, 2, 3, and 4, so you'll know where they are. Now delete the entire Neighborhoods folder.

Make a copy of the Neighborhoods folder you removed earlier (the one with the merged neighborhood). Put this copy into \My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\

Now temporarily remove all the files for the Downtown sub-hoods (N00#_Downtown00#.package. Other ones, like Universities, can stay). You can move them to the Desktop for safe keeping.

Go to Program Files. Follow the instructions (described in Method 1, above) for ripping Number ID out of the Nightlife sub-hood template, putting it into a copy of the Riverblossom template, and swapping the Nightlife template with the Riverblossom copy.

Run the game and attach a Downtown. This should be Riverblossom. Exit the game.

Find the original sub-hoods that you removed earlier. Open each one in SimPE and replace the Number ID's with those from the folders called 1, 2, 3.

Open the file for the new Riverblossom sub-hood in SimPE and replace Number ID with the one from the folder called 4. Now rename the file so that the number doesn't conflict with the other three sub-hoods. Now move those original three sub-hoods back in.



I hope this made some kind of sense. Like I said, it's a bit complicated if you have to work with an existing neighborhood, which you obviously don't want to explode in the process. The two methods above represent the safest way to do this, and the way I personally would do it. Other methods will most likely result in a catastrophe. Shortcuts are not your friends.





I think there is a thread in Peasantry with the DNA-fixed Maxis neighborhoods.

Here's the link: http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,7086.0.html



Also, I want to add that you can experiment with adding Riverblossom as an additional sub-hood template to an existing one. I have read that this is possible, but have not tried it. There's a mod here somewhere that kills the gigantic Bluewater button, which you'd probably need to get if you wanted to try this. Also, I don't think adding an additional sub-hood template is as simple as dumping it into Program Files. The ID Number would need to be changed. You could do that by yanking it out of any file that represents a second sub-hood of that type added to a neighborhood. For example, if you want a second Nightlife template you would need to attach the Maxis Downtown template plus a custom Downtown, then yank ID Number out of the custom one and use it for the second template you are trying to add.

I've tried your tutorial before, and it worked like a charm, but now that I'm trying to add Riverblossom, it doesn't work as it's supposed to be. I've tried it several ways, I've tried to attach it as a suburb to my original (unplayed) merged hood, I've tried from scratch using Pleasantvieuw as main hood and tried it again using Riverblossom itself as main hood. I just can't change the default templates anymore.
Is something that might have been changed with adding Seasons? Or am I a complete idiot who forgets the same step over and over again?
Has anyone else tried it yet and got it to work?

It may be a Seasons problem, although I've had two people so far say they've attached Riverblossom successfully using the method above.

I know that Pets screwed up templates a bit, but I personally never had problems... and in fact I'm not entirely sure what is supposedly screwed up.

I'll look into the problem.

Thanks :) In the meanwhile, I've tried again a couple of times, trying to use downtown templates and suburb templates (not together), but they still won't show up. When I choose to add another downtown or subhood, I just get the list where you can make a custom one using any terrain.

Okay, well, I tested it (with all expansion packs installed), and everything works like it should.

(http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c129/saramkirk/scraps/noproblem.jpg)

Let's try to troubleshoot your problem.

1. Did you remove the files for existing Downtowns (or Bluewater if you are trying to replace the OFB template) before attempting to add another Downtown? This would be the most obvious reason for the only option that shows up to be the one to add a custom sub-hood and not a template.

2. Did you replace the ID Number inside the template you are trying to use as the new Downtown template? And if you did, did you use an ID Number that was ripped out of a Downtown sub-hood?

3. Did you rename EVERYTHING when you put in the new template in place of the Downtown template? Including the folder itself? For example, if you were going to use Riverblossom as a new Downtown template, you'd need to rename the folder from G001 to D001, and then ALL of the files inside it.

Other than these three, I can't think of a good reason why it isn't working.

I took al those three steps (several times in fact  ::) The last time I printed the whole tutorial out so I would be sure I did every single step but still nothing. As I said , it worked for me before Seasons, I had no trouble merging hoods using your method, but now I just can't get Riverblossom to show up as a template. I can't get any of the other hoods show up either  ???
Anyway, thanks for trying to help me  ;D

Is the Riverblossem hood included in the download?

If so i would be VERY greatfull.

agrees with ^ :D
it would be sooo amazing if you could add the RiverBlossom&families  to the download  :-*

No, it's not included. I will add it, but not right now. Having too much fun actually playing the game. LOL

yay! i love you  :D Thankies! hehe  :-*
Have fun with the game :)

Someone has informed me that she had trouble also after Seasons, but managed to make it work by omitting  one of the steps.

Try NOT taking out the existing Downtown sub-hood files before trying to add a new sub-hood.

I don't mean to be a bug, but has anyone been able to make a template replacement for bluewater village with river blossom hills?

If so could they please put it up?

Thank you

I finally figured out the problem and thought I'd put it here (although it's really stupid  ::) ) Appearantly, it's the 'subhoods' into G001 that create the problem, once I threw them out, it showed up as a template  ;D

Samethana, what step did u avoid to attach riverblossom?

I didn't avoid any step, I just removed the two subhoods that were in the G001 folder

Hey Sara,

Thanks for the tut/tips btw.  I will probably attempt this sometime this weekend, if not tonight.  I had a quick question tho.  I already attempted to see if I could just stick the G001 as another template.  It didn't quite work... but the game did end up generating two sets of those Riverblossoms' families in the sim bin (the Ramaswamis and the Ottomans).

What would I have to do (either delete or replace) inside the G001 folder to prevent this from happening?

I saw in your updated empty templates thread, you have a fix for the G002 folder.  But I don't think that's what I need, is it?  From my initial botched attempt, it appears that the sim binned families reside in the G001 folder.  I want to keep the sims that come with Riverblossom (The plant sims, the viejos, etc.) but make sure that only one copy of the sim binned families (ramaswamis and ottomans) show up.

I hope that makes sense.  Please help. :)

Ste

As another template for what? You mean like to have two Downtown templates to choose from all the time? Or just to replace Downtown or OFB temporarily so you can attach Riverblossom to another neighborhood as a sub-hood?


As far as the binned families....

Seasons gave us two neighborhoods. One is the Riverblossom neighborhood (G001) that can now be selected from the Neighborhood selection screen (a completely self-contained neighborhood like Pleasantview etc.). The other one is a "stealth" sub-hood (G002) that gets attached automatically to each of your neighborhoods. This stealth sub-hood has no lots, and no sims except the two binned families.

The stealth sub-hood is the one that has the binned families. The real Riverblossom does not have them. It only gets them after G002 gets attached to it, just like it gets attached to every neighborhood.

I have no idea how you ended up with two copies of the families, unless you pulled the G001 "template" from My Documents instead of from Program Files. The binned families do not reside in the G001 neighborhood, they reside in G002, like I said. But, if you used the G001 neighborhood from My Docs, then the two families have been inserted into it from the G002 stealth sub-hood. Then G002 got attached again  to whatever neighborhood you were working with, and that's how you ended up with two copies of the families. If this is in fact the problem, then all you need to do to prevent it is to use the neighborhood from Program Files instead of the one from My Docs.

If none of this sounds like it makes sense, be more specific about what you did that caused the families to be duplicated.

I first attempted the former... that is, I placed G001 in the OFB neighborhood template area and renamed stuff to B002.  This did not work, obviously, because I already had Bluewater attached [I suspected the reason, and pretty much confirmed this when I read your other thread(s) this morning].

What I want to attempt, later tonight probably, is the latter: i.e. swap things out temporarily so I can attach Riverblossom to my Pleasantview with only a single copy of the binned families.


As far as the binned families....



Those sneaky, stealthy bastards!!! >:( Well... I guess that is sorta similar to how Pets "snuck" in the Critturs and other dude with dog families.



I kinda did things in a foggy haze the other night, so I don't remember for sure... but I think I was using the G001 from the Program Files folder.  I stuck that in the OFB templates folder, after renaming files to B002.  After my attempts failed, I just decided to give up for the night and futz around with other things.  Later, when I re-entered Pleasantview, I saw two copies of the Ottomans and the Ramaswamis.   I was confused and freaked out, thinking I borked my game (thankfully, I have several backups).  Anyhew, I finally realized I forgot to delete the B002 folder I had created.  Once I did that, things were fine.


Does the G001 folder contain G002 as a sub-folder?

Anyhew... I guess I'll things again tonight, and see what happens.  I'll be a tad more careful this time and use your method described in the how-to merge thread with your downtown example... but I'll use the OFB template instead.


Also... I posted a somewhat semi-related question about Uni templates and antiredundancy over here (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=7383.msg214129#msg214129).  I dunno if you've bothered to try it, but I was just curious if I could use the empty/"clean" templates to add a 2nd and 3rd Uni, and if antiredundancy would prevent the generation of Uni NPCs per Uni.  I suppose I could just try it, and see what happens :P  But I was wondering if anyone already tried it or knew for sure, off hand, when those Uni NPCs get generated, and if having antiredundancy would actually prevent/limit them from being generated.

In that thread, apparently the game still needs 24 profs.  But I wasn't sure if anti-redundancy can prevent in-game generation after using "clean" templates.  It is my assumption/understanding that... without using empty/"clean" templates, each of those Uni hoods already comes with NPCs generated.  So... antiredundancy can't prevent them from being copied over.  But... if you have the empty/"clean" template installed, then I would imagine that adding a Uni would just add that as a sub-hood, and the NPCs should only be generated if necessary.  But since I already have an existing Uni hood, those quotas should already be met, no?  So I would hope that antiredundancy would prevent them from adding more profs, etc. Yes? No? Am I crazy?  :D


Ste

Yes, exactly the same.

Nope. They're two completely separate things.

The stelthy subhood is located at C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Seasons\TSData\Res\NeighborhoodTemplate

And the real Riverblossom is at C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Seasons\TSData\Res\UserData\Neighborhoods


No idea... I would hope it only needs 24 total and not 24 per Uni, but this is Maxis we're talking about.

Even with all the anti-redundancy/anti-respawn hacks, and with the empty templates, the game will still create 24 professors, so there doesn't seem to be any way around it.

Worse, it does NOT generate them "as needed." Professors are the only NPC's that the game insists on creating up-front. It creates them the first time you load a Uni, which will happen as soon as you attach a Uni, since the Uni neighborhood insists on loading itself after being created (another annoyance).


Here's a link to a post where I describe what happens (in terms of NPC's being generated) when you use the empty templates. http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=5861.msg208040#msg208040

really cool but i was wondering if maybe for the seasons edition for this you could make it not overight any of the base hoods?

This doesn't over-ride any of the base neighborhoods. You are supposed to create a new game set for the merged neighborhood, or use a renaming program to give it a new number so that you can add it to your existing game set.

ahh..i ended up renaming all the files anyways...by hand ugh  cant wait for the seasons one =]

I just wanted to post that your tutorial was awesome.  It totally worked.  A couple of things tho:

1) I noticed that with the newer "craptastic" version of SimPE, there is an option for the Number ID to "make unique"

I'm guessing this would be sufficient?  As long as the it has a unique id?  That way, you wouldn't have to pre-create the custom hoods.  You could just dump the template in, and click the "make unique" option.  Right?

2) The storytelling didn't get copied over.  I suppose that's obvious since it's not included in the template folder itself.  I had to figure out how to add that back.  Basically, I had to go in game, open up the story album stuff, and have it generate the .xml files as like place holders, for each hood and each household.  Then I copied over the pictures and .xml files from the Strangetown and Veronaville hood storytelling.  And then, I had to rename all the files with the corresponding placeholder.  I also had to edit the .xml files so that they pointed to the new/correct filenames.  I hope that makes sense.


Anyhew, I'm lookin forward to a clean template of Riverblossom Hills. :)  I'm just a greedy greedy fucker ain't I?  Well, appreciative fucker at least. :D

/me mashes the thanks ewe button repeatedly!  Baaaaaaaaa!!! ;D


Ste

That has always been in SimPE as far as I know, and does not work properly for this purpose. That's pretty much what I used before I called it quits and decided you need to rip out Number ID from a valid file.

However, remember that my method is the "safest," but you are not guaranteed to get glitches if you do it the easy way and just dump a template in. I've talked about the "one over the other" gltch before, and it seemed very common in testing (and from comments made by people who did something I cautioned against (added another Downtown)), so I'm satisfied that my method is the way to avoid that sort of glitch-potential.


Yeah, that part gets lost in the shuffle. Copying the xml files is what I did, too, as I'm not aware of any other method to do it (except to manually rebuild the albums...). I'm not sure why it happens, exactly, since if obviously the Maxis sub-hoods copy over their albums correctly. Probably the Number ID thing is at fault again.

Would you mind re-iterating again.  I think I read through your three threads here and although there are references to the things you mentioned, I didn't see any actual explanation.  I did use the OFB suburb template cuz of your warnings about Downtown, but I didn't find anything that explained why it was so bad.  I must have glossed over something.

Also... about the Number ID... well, I'm not sure... and I might have borked something... but originally, when I made my first attempt, I added custom OFB suburbs and extracted those INDO/IDNO? files.  I botched my initial attempt, and then when I realized I only had empty templates and not cleaned templates, I held off on that and decided to try to add the other Unis.  It seemed reasonable that, with your cleaned up Unis, and Pescado's hacks in place, I should theoretically be able to add them without generating too many profs.  I wanted to confirm that before I tried, and other peeps seemed to indicate it would be safe. 
That turned out successful and then I went back to adding Strangetown and Veronaville.

Since I was lazy, I didn't bother re-creating new OFB suburbs and thought I could just use the Number IDs I had previously extracted.  That appeared to work, but then I realized I had added those two other Unis, and so the numbers might collide.  The game seemed to load fine the first time around before I had realized there may be a potential conflict.  I re-opened the two new suburbs and that's when I noticed that 'make unique' button/link.  I clicked it, it changed them simply by incrementing them so that they were unique (did not conflict with the two Unis I added).  I poked around Strangetown and Veronaville, and then ended up having to fix the storytelling.  But as far as I could tell, they looked ok.  I suppose I should go back and check on the Unis and make sure that those subhoods didn't get fux0r3d.  I do have a backup, if I needed to start over, but hopefully I won't have to.



I'm not sure, but for me, just dumping the files in there didn't work.  I had to go to each 'hood and click on the story book thing.  Then click on the caption editing thing, which generated an .xml file in the Storytelling folder.  The default Strangetown webentry file thingie has '00000002' it in (00000003 for Veronaville).  My subhood Strangetown generated an .xml file with '00000013' in the name.  I then renamed all snapshot, thumbnail, and webentry .xml files from 02 -> 13.  I also went into the .xml files themselves, and did the same.  When I went back into the game, they showed up properly. :)

I don't think I even looked at the default storytelling for Bluewater Village, does it even have stories?

The other thing I noticed was that the Maxis stories didn't have captions.  I wasn't sure if that was the default (heh, see how much I play and how much I use the Maxis defaults? :P  But I plan to use them all now that I've added them into my game. Heh. ;D) or if I screwed it up.  I asked someone in chat, and they said that's how it is for them too... so I'm hoping that's the case.

Anyhew, thanks again so much for doing all the groundwork and coming up with these tutorials.  I now have like 800 sims in my game.  And I haven't even gotten through to the 2nd generation in ANY of them.  Hehe.  My game may very well go 'splodie into a great BFBVFS, but at least I know I can now regen the basehoods and start from scratch and what not.  I could reboot my hood again, but ugh, I don't want to have to start all over just yet.  I'll just run this hood into the ground.  And start over when it actually dies.  But for now, it probably won't be that big of an issue for me since my playstyle is so slow anyways.

Ste

The sub-hoods don't have stories for families, but they do have those picture/story things that pop up when you first enmter the subhood and tell you all about its features.

As far as I know the Maxis family albums did not have captions, but it has been a while since I looked.

The Number ID thing is actually very simple, it's just that actually making them unique is annoyingly complicated.

For a neighborhood to function, every sub-hood that's attached to it has to have a unique Number ID, and this also has to be a valid Number ID for the type of sub-hood it is (Downtown, etc).

SimPE apparently doesn't show you everything that needs to be changed to make the Number ID unique. I really gave this feature a fair shot, and still suffered glitches, so I'm just making the assumption that something is not quite right about it. This is why we need to rip it out of another file.

It does not matter where you rip Number ID out from, as long as it is valid (the same type of sub-hood) and as long as it will be unique for that neighborhood.

So this leads to the shuffle that I recommend preforming when merging neighborhoods. In order to fool the game into thinking that something is a template for a sub-hood, you need to import Number ID from a real template. That is, the Maxis template. But, if you then re-use that same Number ID to fool the game into thinking another neighborhood is a template, you are basically attaching a second sub-hood that has the same Number ID.

NORMALLY this can never happen in the game. The game makes each sub-hood unique when you attach it. The problem is this: We are fooling the game into adding a template more than once. As you know, normally you don't have the option to add the Maxis made sub-hoods more than once. We force it to allow this by removing the file that represents the attached subhood. This is one of the steps in the tutorial, right? You attach a sub-hood, then you remove the file that represents it, and this allow you to add the template again. This, I speculate, is what prevents the game from always correctly assigning unique Number IDs to each sub-hood. It can't check which ones are alredy used, since we removed them.

The way I chose to solve this is by then replacing the Number ID in the (successfully attached) sub-hoods with ones that are guaranteed to be unique. The simplest way, which is why I recommend it, is to make a dummy neighborhood and attach a whole bunch of sub-hoods to it, and then rip the Number IDs from those sub-hoods. They are guaranteed to be unique.

There are probably other ways to do this, but this is the way that I came up with, and it works.

So, as to your question, if you used the OFB template, you are now facing the same problem as with Downtown: it is not safe to add any more OFB sub-hoods to the merged neighborhood. However, you could fix this by adding the sub-hood and then replacing the Number ID with a unique one from a valid file. The safest way would be to use a dummy neighborhood and attach as many sub-hoods as you already have attached to the real one, plus one more for the one you want to attach, and then use those Number IDs to replace the Number ID in all sub-hoods (of that type). Which is basically what I wrote in the mini-tut that I gave you. Another way would be to make a dummy copy of your real neighborhood, attach another subhood to it, rip Number ID out of that, and then use the ripped out Number ID to replace the one in the new sub-hood that you willbe attaching. I gave those instructions to Flamingo, because I thought there was less SimPE work doing it that way, but you can see how the result is exactly the same.

I don't know if you are asking what the one-over-the-other bug is, so I'll just explain that. Basically it's a nasty little glitch where your neighborhood looks okay, but when you enter a lot you find yourself inside a lot in the wrong neighborhood, plus with some graphical glitches where the houses look like hybrids of two houses. After a while the neighborhood view becomes similarly corrupted as well. I suppose you could fix this glitch by replacing the Number IDs, though I have not tried.

The part where you wrote that you had added some Unis and were afraid there would be a problem... I don't think that is possible. Using my method of merging neighborhoods, as far as I know, the only thing you need to worry about is sub-hoods of the same type.

I don't think using SimPE's "make unique" feature would mess anything up. I just haven't found it to work properly for the purpose of making the game see two sub-hoods as separate entities, which is what you would think "make unique" is supposed to do. I really do wish it would work, because that would prevent us from doing about a billion things to make merged neighborhoods work. I might do more testing on it at some point.

Finally... if your neighborhood works fine, then you don't need to redo anything. You'd know if anything was wrong, since clicking on a lot and winding up in the wrong house in the wrong neighborhood is kind of a big clue.

Ahh I see.  And yes, I did want to know what the "one-over-the-other" glitch was.  I tried to search for that phrase, but only found two exact references at the time.  The post you had just made (before my last one) and in the first post of one of your 3 threads, but it didn't elaborate.  Anyways, thanks for the thorough and comprehensively written explanation.  I'm glad I followed your tutorial.  I tested the hoods last night, and it seems to be ok.  I'll have to check and go into the Uni hoods to see if I enter any of the wrong hoods.  But I went into Strangetown and Veronaville lots just fine, so I imagine I'm ok.


One last question, so when you are saying you can't add another OFB sub-hoods, you just mean that you can't go all willy nilly and just randomly add new sub-hoods.  That the only way to properly add sub-hoods now is to follow the tutorial, otherwise you might get screwed up Number IDs.  So... it's not that I shouldn't ever add a new Downtown at all.  It's just that, if I wanted to, I should carefully follow your tutorial to do so, right?

At first, I was under the impression that I couldn't add another Downtown ever.  From what I read, I inferred that there was something terribly wrong with Downtown, specifically, and that's why you recommended using the OFB template as the 1st method in this post:



But... if I follow your directions carefully, I could theoretically add Riverblossom Hills as a Downtown?  Or would you still recommend sticking to the OFB template method?

Sorry to be such a nuisance with all my questions, but I just want to be sure I don't screw anything up and get this one-over-the-other glitch. :)

Ste

In a nutshell, here is the difference between using Downtown and using OFB: If you are using OFB and following the tutorial I gave you in post #59, the game itself will generate Number ID's that are correct for your specific neighborhood. If you are using Downtown, the Number ID's come from a completely different dummy neighborhood. I don't think it makes any difference, but the first one sort of sounds better, doesn't it?

Aside from this, there isn't a difference between adding another neighborhood as a Downtown or as the OFB sub-hood, except in the amount of work that you'd have to do. If you already have two or three Downtowns added, but no OFB yet, then it's preferable to add it as the OFB sub-hood, and also somewhat less likely to suffer a glitch since there will be fewer chances for something to go wrong somewhere.

Maybe I overstated the "DO NOT ADD DOWNTOWN!!!!11! slightly. For most people that's perfectly good advice, since there is no way that anyone would be aware of the potential glitch unless I did put a giant warning somewhere. Also, my original warnings about it were all written before I knew that the one-over-the-other glitch actually could be fixed after it had already happened. When I wrote the tutorial and made the merged neighborhood up for download, that glitch was believed to be the end of the neighborhood. Riverblossom introduced a problem that didn't exist before, in that now people have a valid reason to want to add yet another sub-hood... after I specifically said that doing this is forbidden. So then I had to do a complete turn-around and say that, no, it's not forbidden after all, and here's what you should do... so of course people are confused now.

The tutorial I gave you (post #59) is probably the best one for anyone to use when attaching Riverblossom. It covers all possible EP configurations and variations of sub-hoods attached to a neighborhood, and it does cover attaching Riverblossom as a Downtown. Despite the dire warnings, there is no big difference (aside from what I said at the top) between Method 1's Variations 1&2 and Method 2. But, it is completely untested, so if something blows up, I warned 'ya.

The only other note I have for all of the above is that if you are going to add Riverblossom as a Downtown, do not confuse Method 2 (which is specifically for adding it as Downtown) with Method 1. They are NOT the same. I already had one person PM me after getting them mixed up because Method 1 sounded like it would be easier....

Are you going to add an upload with the riverblossom hills pre-added?
It'd make the idiot of me who's likely to mess up with it and make it easier.
Of course, if you're waiting for a new SimPE to fix the broken sims with Seasons then I can wait.

Is there a way to do this while maintaining the Pleasantville I have alreayd played... IOW, merging with it, so that I do not need to go back and play the same families all over again, or is it a must that I start from scratch?

TIA!

You would have to create your own merged neighborhood using the tutorial. There's some instructions for using an existing neighborhood on page 2 of this thread: http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=4480.50

Hi, I'm trying to start completely over with your neighborhood.
I followed this exactly.

To install, place the Neighborhoods folder into \My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\ (don't forget to save/backup the one you already have there).

When Seasons loads the only option I am given are to either create a custom neighborhood, learn to play, or quit.
How can I fix this?

Try deleting the NeighborhoodsManager file.

However, it sounds like something went wrong somewhere.

Another thing to do is to look in the Neighborhoods folder and make sure you haven't accidentally created too many subfolders, such as Neighborhoods\Neighborhoods\N001. The only folders inside the Neighborhoods folder should be ones for the actual neighborhoods... in this case you should probably just have N001 if you were following my tutorial exactly.

Holy Wow!!
That was a quick reply, you rock!

neighborhoodmanager.package isn't included in the download.

Current directory structure:
C:\Documents and Settings\Sims2\My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighborhoods\
\Neighborhoods\ contains:
N001
Tutorial (auto-created after I started Seasons)

\Neighborhoods-Backup\ contains:
G001
N001
N002
N003
Tutorial
NeighborhoodManager.package

o.0
Is there more than one step in this process?
The readme.txt included in the download only says:
"INSTALLATION: Remove your current neighborhoods from the My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\ directory. Replace the Neighborhoods folder with the one you downloaded from me."

In addition to Seasons I have NL and all other episodes installed.

Oops, sorry, that part didn't really apply to the downloaded neighborhood, did it?

Okay, so where is \Neighborhoods-Backup\ located? You cannot have it ANYWHERE in the EA Games folder, or the game may try to read it. Put it somewhere else if it's inside the EA Games folder.

Got it working..kinda..
I placed my old neighborhoodmanager.package in with your neighborhood.
Everything works and is accessable, however, Sim State University shows it's buildings and the lots of La Academie and vice-versa.

I'll move the backup out of the folder and delete and retry.

Moving the backup outside of the directory fixed the problem.
Thanks for all the help.
It might be a good idea to add that note in the readme.txt

Thanks!

Hi
I tried to merge my hoods a long time back now and ended up corupting strange (ville?) to the point where even when I delete neighbourhoods and load them again, it is still corupt, wont let me load atall.
Do you have any idea's on how I could get this hood back or where I might be able to download a fresh clean uncorupt one.
Thanks ;D

What do you mean by delete neighborhoods?

And... when you merged your hoods, did you do it in the proper way, carefully following the steps laid out in SaraMK's tutorial?

I would suggest starting all over, using SaraMK's blank or clean templates and using her merged Pleasantview, Strangetown, and Veronaville template, if you really want a merged hood.

I would make backups every now and then, so if your 'hood ends up getting corrupted, you could at least go to a backup.  I usually at least make a backup once a month, or before doing anything major, such as installing a new EP/SP or even something as simple as using a new, experimental hack.

Ste

If you messed with something in the Program Files\EA Games\ directory, and you think you corrupted the Strangetown template, then you will need to pull a fresh copy off the Sims 2 (base game) CD.

I setup my game with Pleasantview as my base neighborhood and Strangetown, Veronaville and Riverblossom Hills as my additional Downtown areas.

Everything worked great.  I've been playing it for months now but today I noticed something odd I hadn't even thought about before.

When I send sims to Gothier Green Lawns to try and see a ghost in the cemetary I see all the dead sims are gone. No graves. No urns. No tombstones. No nothing.  I wonder if there is someway to restore those sims back to their graves or are they just history?

Something go wrong in the merging process?

If there isn't anyway of getting those sims back I can live with that I guess cause it gives me an opportunity to kill off more sims.  LOL

The reason is that the people who were dead - the Tricou family - have been ressurected to avoid problems with the game. I guess you are free to kill them again!  :D

SaraMK,

I will gladly donate money if you can provide a download that also includes Riverblossom Hills.

I would prefer it as an OFB sub-hood, which I guess would mean you would also have to include Bluewater Village.

I know I'm not the only one that would LOVE this. But I'm willing to put a donation towards the effort.

Or, a tutorial would be great, as I had no problems using your "Merging the Maxis Neighborhoods" one.

Thanks! And your posts have been extremely helpful. They should get you to help develop TS3 :)

Aw, no, SaraMK is a paysite?!

*hides behind couch, expecting to be destroyed any minute now*

I'm still working on a merger that includes Riverblossom. I have *almost* figured out how to make it compatible for people without all the EP's installed, which is what I want. It might even be finished this week. Unless it keeps crashing, in which case I will make one that's compatible only for people with NL, OFB, and Seasons, because that's the only other setup I currently have, other than the one that includes every EP.

Ewww... Paysites are bad, m'kay! Sorry, that wasn't my intent. How about a cup of coffee? ;)

/me Ooooooooers...

Does this mean a "Clean" template won't be too far behind?  I've been putting off adding Riverblossoms to my 'hood, but it would be great to have a clean template.  The other 'hoods have been working fine so far.  I've even seen those other playables wanderin around on comm lots.  My 'hood is probably going 800+ sims strong (townies and playables) and so far no 'splodie (*knocks on wood*).

I'm havin fun playin around, and even if the hood goes down in flames, I won't mind restarting so much thanks to your clean templates.  If I weren't so lazy, I'd even consider doin a custom hood, but I'm lazy and don't want to have to go buildin, furnishing, and arranging houses from scratch. :P

I think I'll just play my 'hood til it burns to the ground in a blazing glory of zombie apocalypse! :D

Ste

Yes, but if you do, be sure to remove the old placeholder tombstones from Gothier Green Lawns first, and THEN kill off the Tricou clan, otherwise their tombstones will go poof into the ether.

Don't ask me how I know this. Let's just say that Jennicor got to know the Grim Reaper very well.

Hi, first time poster long time lurker here,

I did this experience myself and I'll share my notes -

Experiment 1 -
Followed the directions SaraMK placed in another post carefully, but I modified them to make Strangetown into Downtown 2 and add Veronaville and Riverblossom as Shopping districts, in addition to Bluewater and the standard downtown. (makes for nice trifecta's on the subhood selection dialogues).  Everything went smooth as silk from the modified instructions and the neighborhoods loaded up perfectly.  I then backed it up when I exited the game.  Then I proceeded to play, made a sim in CAS and played him as legacy, messed around with a few Maxis families, added a university, and patched Seasons later that evening before I went to bed.

When I came home the next evening and loaded up the game, all the families had disappeared from all subhoods, even my legacy guy that was living downtown.  Oh well, restore from backup...same deal.  I blame the patch personally.

Experiment 2 -
Hoping to shortcut the process from the night before, I had sims create all 4 neighborhoods from scratch, didn't load any, and exited the game.  I converted all 3 N001, N003, and G001 neighborhoods into B00# templates (starting at B005 to make sure I skip past the borked numbering for OFB) and modified their properties with SimPE appropriately, assigning unique ID 25, 26, 27.

I fired up the game and with the help of the "Bluewater Button Killer" was able to see Pleasantview and Veronaville added to the list.  Riverblossom (B007, ID 27) was not on the list.  Reasoning 1 - even though the button was killed, the list still filled under Bluewater and there are only spots for 2 more templates, so Riverblossom didn't make it.  Veronaville made it in just fine as shopping districts and I added Bluewater for good measure, I didn't add Pleasantview because that was the root neighborhood.  Exited the game.

Did the same procedure, but converting N002 (Strangetown) to D004 (unique ID 28).  Fired up the game and tried to add it.  First off, the "button issue" is the same for nightlife, so a button killer hack for Downtown adding would be nice.  No problems though, yet.  The first "Downtown" I added was the regular downtown when I pressed the button.  The next time I added a hood, the downtown button was still there, but "Strangetown" loaded up instead in sequence.  Problem though - Strangetown had no people at all...totally deserted.  The problem didn't infect the other hoods though like the last time.

The second wierd issue I noticed was that although I didn't add Riverblossom, every time I switched hoods I got the wait screen "Loading X hood" and THEN "Loading Riverblossom".  The end result was that I had 5 copies of the Riverblossom maxis-mades in my sim bin, without ever attaching Riverblossom.  Doubleplusungood.

Experiment 3 -
I killed the Riverblossom template in the OFB hoods folder and left the other two alongside Bluewater as "known good" templates.  I reloaded the defaults again after killing the neighborhoods folder.  This time I launched the game and killed all but Riverblossom, and loaded it up as my main hood.  I successfully attached Pleasantview, Bluewater, and Veronaville perfectly from the templates I made in the last experiment as Shopping Districts.  I then exited the game.

First, I backed up my G001 folder in my Docs, and then went to work in the Nightlife templates folder where I had D001 (Original Downtown) and D004 (Strangetown).
- I put D004 on the desktop, then loaded the game and attached Original downtown and a dummy downtown.
- Closed down the game.  Used SimPE to rip out the ID from the dummy and then erased the dummy G001_Downtown_002.package.
- In the same folder, moved Downtown_001.package to the desktop.
- Used SimPE to rip out the ID from the Downtown template, loaded it into the D004 template.
- Took D001 out of the Nightlife templates folder, put in D004.
- Restarted the game, attached downtown (Strangetown), this time the Strangetown folks were all there, poked around the other hoods to make sure everyone else was there, all good.  :D
- Exited, then changed Downtown_001 (Strangetown) to _002, put back in Downtown_001 off the desktop.
- Used SimPE to change the ID of Downtown_002 to the one I ripped out of the dummy.

Everything works now, but only using Riverblossom as the base hood.

End result
Riverblossom Hills as Main Hood
Verona Village, Bluewater Village, Pleasant Village as "Shopping Districts"
Downtown and Strangetown as "Downtowns"
All 3 Universities also attached successfully.

Game plays well after mucking about, reloading, restarting.  Zipped backup file size 459MB (without Uni's attached)

Scientifical Conclusions
- Downtowns are harder to work with than Suburbs, very finicky with the numbering system.  Suburbs are very forgiving with just modifying them with SimPE (start with high unique numbers), no need to copy, add dummies, or rip to convert the anything to a template.  Downtowns require the whole "Create dummy-rip out ID-switch templates, load and quit repeatedly" routine.

- Killing the "Big Buttons" doesn't reorder the list of templates, and there's no scroll bar, so only 2 additional templates per type will fit in the badly designed "Add Subhood" dialogue boxes.

- Riverblossom makes for a crappy template no matter what type because of the latest big patch wierdness, suggest patched users use it as their base hood.  The patch does some kind of seek and destroy on the original G001 template to fix the Ottomas problem which borks any kind of template conversion to a different type of hood.

- Second suggestion is that patched users simply use the long way of doing things from SaraMK's thread, with or without modified instructions (I'll post these later) if they want to merge all their hoods.

- Seasons installation updates the ID's and "supported versions" of the original template files for Sim2 and OFB hoods/subhoods, but doesn't touch Uni or Nightlife templates...I have a strange feeling this is why they are so sensitive to SimPE fiddling.

Hope this helped somebody in some way - now to finally get started on my default servo replacement experiments.

Sara,

First I would like to say I am playing in your merged hood and loving it Well Done :D

Please Excuse my complete n00b question.... I have already added a blue water and I also have a second shopping district attached... would the tutorial work the same way to add River Blossom *as a Third shopping district* be the same or is it different in any way???

So basically I have a "N001_Suburb004.package" and a "N001_Suburb004.png" ....thats the second Shopping District.... So RiverBlossom would need to be Suburb005?

Also, I want the hood without the townies and NPC's, just the houses and the people.... any advice would be appreciated.  ;D


Thanks a Million

Rich

There's a tutorial for it somewhere...

Here: http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,4274.msg207964.html#msg207964

That's probably the one you quoted, anyway.

If you attach Riverblossom as a Suburb (OFB sub-hood), yes, it will become the next N001_Suburb00#.package.

As for making the template empty of townies/NPCs, I will be uploading one soon, so you might want to wait for it. It's a bit complicated to make a townie/NPC-free one yourself.

I have the uni templates in and I generated La Fiesta tech, I got all the maxis housed sims, along with the bin sims which is fine, and when I went into a sims house, I got 82 professors and I think it keeps going up.

Do you have any idea why this is happening??? ... I assumed the templates were not supposed to have npc's.

on a side note, all the other templates such as blue water seem to be working as they should.

So I do not understand why the uni did this...

Thank you for your help

Rich

The first Uni you attach is supposed to generate 24 professors and there isn't anything you can do about it. However, 82 is weird, and definitely should not be happening. How do you know you got 82, and how do you know they're professors?

Do you have all the noregen/antiredundancy hacks installed?

I know I have 82 by looking in simpe, I looked in the sim browser arranged them by package number. the professors start at package number 520 and end at 602....

here are a few pics...

http://img409.imageshack.us/my.php?image=prof1pg2.jpg
http://img409.imageshack.us/my.php?image=prof2tq5.jpg
http://img184.imageshack.us/my.php?image=prof3tl9.jpg
http://img409.imageshack.us/my.php?image=prof4pu9.jpg
http://img523.imageshack.us/my.php?image=prof5wj9.jpg
http://img523.imageshack.us/my.php?image=prof6mi2.jpg

I have the  antiredundancy hack, I do also have the notownieregen hack

How can I get rid of all these professors? will deleting the college within game resolve it all for now?

Rich

There's no way to delete them now except by going through the Deleted 2 process (see The War Room).

I really have no idea why the game spammed you with professors. I don't think I've ever read of that happening before. There WAS a glitch where the game would just make hundreds of NPCs when an NPC, like a gardener, would get stuck on a lot, but I thought it was solved (I haven't heard of it happening to anyone since befiore NL was released). I guess it's possible that's what happened. When you went to that house that you think created all those professors, did the lot slow down to a crawl, making it unplayable for a long period of time?

Antiredundancy is Pescado's hack that stops the game from creating extra NPCs. For example, the game usually will create 3 mail delivey people, 3 pizza delivery people, 3 maids... 3 of every NPC. With the hack, only ONE will be created, unless you do something that forces the game to create more (such as calling for pizza when the only pizza delivery person is visiting your house). It's a very awesome hack. However, I don't think it works on professors. The game refuses to create less than 24 of those. I don't know if the hack could have prevented your problem.

The deleted 2 process is out of my league... seems like I would mess up my entire  hood... what would deleting the uni within the game where it says "delete N'hood" if that doesn't delete all the college folks and profs surely I can just delete their packages from the character folder?

any way you can take a look at my hood?

There must be away without doing the deleted 2 process, it would take a while for 82 sims...

Rich

Delete N'hood will not delete any of the already existing Sims.

ok so in that case I can delete their packages right? I don't care about any of the sims in the uni... I didn't get a chance to do anything the game was lagging and crawling like hell

Rich

No. Did you read "Deleted 2"? Just deleting the packages will corrupt your 'hood. If you can't be bothered to delete them in a proper manner, just leave them in the game.

I would leave them alone. Give them nice makeovers and use them for woohoo.

Well for now aslong as my neighborhood doesn't lag the college can sit there and wait for me to get to it, if my neighborhood does lag I better get to work....

but if I use the deleted 2 thread will it just re spawn them? and how do I know it won't re spawn 82 more

Rich

Wheeee!  By townie/NPC-free, you mean a "clean" version that still includes the Maxis EA playables and any non-playables (townies and NPCs) that they know, right?  By this I mean, clean of all the other ones, but keeping any "custom" townie/NPCs that may have been interacted with for whatever story purposes.



@Rich:  Looks like your hood is boned.  If you have a backup, before you added the Unis, I would go back to that.  Alternatively, if you were starting from scratch anyways and/or don't care about any sims you've already played, I would just start over again.  Clean slate.  Using the clean templates to begin with, and have all of those noregen hacks from the get go, as you first "initialize" your 'hood and it's various sub-hoods.  Then... after that, you can take out the noregen hacks if you actually want sims being generated.

The whole point of the "Deleted 2" process being long and complicated is pretty much to be thorough, cuz otherwise, you're liable to end up with borked sims, especially when it comes to dangling swafs and what not.  If you want to be absolutely sure your game is "clean and safe" so to speak, Deleted 2 seems to be about the only way to go.



If you have the noregen hacks in place, they shouldn't respawn.  antiredundancy should keep at least only 1 of each type of "necessary" townie/npc.  24 (or so?) profs must respawn regardless, as the game requires at least 2 profs per major.


Ste

Thanks for the heads up syberspunk :D ... I do have a back up from yesterday, but it was before I did a lot of work, I'd rather loose 6 hours of work than my whole hood.

I appreciate your input... I forgot I made the back up LOL

Rich

EDIT:


I have 54 custom majors, is the game trying to generate 2 profs per major? I have never had this problem before, I have had all these majors for about 2 years

Yes, making backups, multiple backups! even, is a very good idea. ;)

I always backup before doing anything major, like installing a new EP/SP or even before patching (well... sometimes, if I can be bothered :P).  I also try to do a backup at least once a month... or if some major event in my game occurred (births, LTWs, marriages, graduations, etc.) that I know I definitely want to "commit" as a permanent change to the 'hood overall, I will do another backup.


Since you have a backup handy, going forward, you should stick in those noregen and antiredundancy hacks.  Then, use the clean or empty versions of SaraMK's uni templates, and follow her instructions to the tee.  It worked excellently for me.  I added the other 2 Unis (La Fiesta Tech and L'Academie de Tour... since I already had Sim State in there) using the clean versions, and the only additional sims created were the Maxis EA ones I had been expecting.  No additional Uni NPCs (I still had only 24 profs, and the appropriate number of mascots, cheerleaders, coaches, etc.)

Ste

Thanks Ste*if I may call you that*

I thought I did use her clean template, but i'll double check :P

I want the YA's only, and obviously some of the npcs like profs and mascots*I ban those anyway* thanks to twojeffs :P

I appreciate your help Syberspunk, your being very helpful, I do use msn email should be in my profile... if not its Macey246@hotmail.com

Thanks once again

Rich

I just want to thank you Sara, for figuring this process out and especially for putting a file up for download! :)  I've only been lurking here a few days, but I've already picked up many great tips and Awesome hacks.  I tend to consider myself "above-average" when it comes to computers, but I still find SimPE very confusing.  By downloading your 'hood as a base and following your directions, I was able to add Riverblossom as a Shopping District.  It certainly saves some space on the Neighborhood selection screen.  Thanks again!  ;D

Thank you let me say that this is absolutely amazing. I have wanted to do this for so long but my abilities at doing it failed miserably.

Something strange happened to my game, so I had to uninstall the NL ep.  When I loaded the game, thinking that it deleted the Sims 2 folder.  I got a message saying "You have uninstalled NL and all your families have been put into the Sim Bin"  I was amazed to find this was the case. 

Of course I had Seasons installed at the time so my game didnt crash, and indeed, all the sims from Veronaville and Strangetown, were in my sim bin.  I wonder has this happened to anyone else?

Thanks for putting all of this together and sharing it. :) I may get adventurous and try to attach the Seasons hood myself, so thanks for the detailed instructions you supplied as well.

Hi was wondering if anyone could help me. So I downloaded and unzipped the file and placed it in EA Games/The Sims 2 as stated by the creator and it asked me if I wanted to replace the original Neighborhoods file with it so I said yes (nb I have a back up) but when I play the game nothing is there it just asks me to create a new custom neighbor hood. I tried adding the original Neighborhoods back in again and it works fine except there is no Pleasentville at all. Am I just a noob and have done something really silly?  ???

Thanks for the help

Confused Simmer.

Sounds like you merged the folders. Don't do that. Delete the old Neighborhoods folder first, THEN put in the new one.

Hi Tarlia thanks for taking the time to reply. I managed to fix it by removing the excess folders from the file, my computer doesn't handle folders within folders. Away to sim I go  ;D

Does anyone have this neighborhood installed?
I'll need it for my storytelling stories.  :)

It would be much better to create your own using Tarlia's templates:
http://meetme2theriver.livejournal.com/63030.html

Tarlia's stuff is cleaned and fixed and uses the in-game method for attaching subhoods, which makes it less kludgy.

'Scuse the necromancy; download links in original post don't work but I found this working link:
http://www.fileplanet.com/173169/download/The-Sims-2---MERGED-Pleasantview,-Strangetown-&-Veronaville