More Awesome Than You!

Hi all, I have just got NightLife and well I am abit disapointed when I take my sims DownTown.

The pre-release screens showed lots of sims and townies on the downtown lots but whenever my sims visit there are always nearly deserted with maybe only 3 or maximuum 4 other sims there, and when I took a party of 8 people downtown my sims where the only sims there for about 2sim hours.

I know most people request ways of reducing the number of townies but PLEASE I want more townies.

Is there anything I can do to  increase the number of NPC Townies on the community lots, Is there a setting I have missed, anything at all.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help. ;)

By scavenging the various threads I've found out that NL has upped the requirements regarding PC configuration (CPU, graphics card etc). However, since it's almost become EA tradition to deliver faulty stuff, when the game checks out your configuration it doesn't do it right. I've seen posts of (relatively) high-end users complaining that the game doesn't "recognize" their hardware correctly, thus selecting low settings. This is true for, among other, the max number of guests you can invite to a party. Most people it seems can only invite up to 4 sims, some only reach HALF that number! So: check your configuration. What was regarded as average in University now only qualifies as...well...crap! If your configuration is up to spec, download new drivers (which you should do anyway IMO). If you still get the same problem, check out some other threads regarding NL. My memory span is appalingly short, however, so I can't direct you to any thread I'm afraid. If anyone else remembers where the major talk about configuration was on, please post a link?

Well I have a AMD64 3000+ with 1GB DDR400 memory, but i did put all settings down to normal in this expansion.

I also put the veiw nieghbours on to full though, do you think that if i reduce this or turn it off completely it will allow more townies on the lots.
 I had no problem inviting people, it allowed 8 people in a party just like before, just no-one eles was on the lot.

Maybe your lot sucks. If your lot sucks, nobody will show up.

I wouldn't know, as I don't have NL. Your specs look OK, but you don't mention your graphics card. However, if you're among the lucky few who can actually invite 8 ppl to a party, it shouldn't be of an issue. Sorry, can't help you any further.

I have noticed a lack of townies also.  So, I tried this - turning off the view of the neighborhood and the decorations and it seemed to up the number of townies by a couple more but not what you saw on the video clips.  I even updated my graphics drivers.

It's not just you..from what I have read lotsa people are dealing with this.


I once could invite 8 people to a party  (and at least 8  townies would be on community lots) now I can only invite 2-3 at the most to house parties.  Community lots are slightly normal.

I had to bust out the cheat to allow more visiting sims.

I have the same problem. So much for all the damn money I spent on a really good computer eh?

My downtown lots are always packed with people, but 95% of them are Sims who live in the neighborhood.  I've only seen a tiny handful of downtownies.

I had the same problem with only being able to invite 4 people to a party.  It was never a problem before NL.

Karen

I'm guessing since you brought 8 sims down there the game considers that borderline to what the acceptable max on a lot should be and is compensating by having less townies to come on that lot. I frequently go to the downtown lots with one or two sims and always see a fair number of townies and people from the neighborhood (and Mrs. Crumplebottom too! ;) ). One thing I like with this expansion is that there are elder townies now too.

if "intprop maxnumofvisitingsims" still works, just up that number. 

My laptop (3.0ghz machine) gives me about 12 to 15 sims on a downtown lot at a time.  My home pc (1.4 ghz machine) gives me about 6 to 8 on a lot.  This includes any Sims I take on my own and service NPCs.

I've never been 'allowed' more than 2 (unsupported graphics card and all that) so have the intProp cheat permanently in my cheat file.  Nothing has changed for me in NL because of that.  My Sims can invite up to 7 other Sims on an outing (which makes up the 8), there are usually 6 or 7 others when they are invited on one, plus I also get the 8 visiting Sims as well.  I don't experience any noticeable slowdown, but I never did.  I have all the new settings on high as well (most are off or low by default), although I tend to turn them off on community lots as I get very confused and keep trying to use items that are on another lot because I am not familiar with what goes with what.  Then again, even when I am familiar with what goes with what, I am still trying to get my Sims to use items in their next-door neighbours' houses and gardens.

I used to have the problem with deserted lots. I think the no townie regeneration mod caused it. You don't have that in your game, by any chance, do you? If you do, try taking it out. I just had a casual group of 7 and still had several other sims show up after removing it from mine.

Put "intProp maxNumOfVisitingSims 8" in a user startup cheat file, and the problem will be solved. It will affect not only your parties, but your contact lists, and I have indeed noticed more townies showing up on community and downtown lots.
In fact, I love my startup cheat file. I will even share the whole thing with you.

#--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#     alias         real command                                    brief help                         full help
#     ------------- ----------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------- --------------------------------
alias `          pause                                            "Pause"    "Pause the game"
boolProp allow45DegreeAngleOfRotation true
floatProp tvVolume 0.2
intProp maxNumOfVisitingSims 8

alias m "moveObjects on" "Enables the ability to move normally unmovable objects" ""
alias m- "moveObjects off" "Disables the ability to move normally unmovable objects" ""

alias s "boolProp snapObjectsToGrid false" "Lets you move objects off the grid" ""
alias s- "boolProp snapObjectsToGrid true" "Makes objects snap to the grid" ""

alias f "boolprop constrainFloorElevation false" "Enables the ability to change terrain even when there is a building on it" ""
alias f- "boolprop constrainFloorElevation true" "Disables the ability to change terrain even when there is a building on it" ""

alias t "boolprop testingCheatsEnabled true" "Enables a lot of hidden features that can be accessed by holding shift when clicking on objects" ""
alias t- "boolprop testingCheatsEnabled false" "Disables a lot of hidden features that can be accessed by holding shift when clicking on objects" ""

alias cash "motherlode" "Kaching." ""

Thnx everyone , will try that tomorrow

pardon my stupidity but how exactly do you set up a startup cheat file?

Copy the above text, starting with and including the # sign, ending with and including the very last ". Then paste it onto notepad, and save it as userStartup.cheat in your Documents/EA/config folder. The cheats above mean that you don't have to enter boolProp allow45DegreeAngleOfRotation true if you want to rotate something (if you don't have Uni, cut this bit out), just hit the ,. keys. Also your tv volume will not be blaring (it might not be needed in Nightlife, I haven't tested that), and instead of entering "moveobjects on" you enter "m" and to turn it off you enter "m-". Likewise with the other aliases, I won't list them all, just read the file. If you want to edit the file, when you open it select notepad as the program and do not associate it to "always use this program to open this kind of file".  Make sure that box is unchecked. It might not cause problems with your game now (or it might) but no telling what a future patch to windows or The Sims 2 might do.

I didn't know about this "alias" thing, that will come in handy.  Do the letters used have to be those ones or can they be anything you want?

Can you give the exact path to the config folder?  Is it in My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2, or Program Files\EA Games\The Sims 2? 

Thanks,
Karen

Yes.  The folder is Config, it's in there - userStartup.  Just click it to open it, add what you want and save it.

Just make sure to replace the spaces with tabs. I had quite a few problems when setting my userStartup.cheat file because I didn't know that was necessary. I couldn't figure out why it wasn't working for a long time. (Or maybe this is obvious to everyone else and I am a moron. Whatever.)

You can change it to what you want, but it has to be letters. I tried $ instead of cash, it didn't work.

Um, I did. When I said "in your Documents/EA/config. Well technically it would be "My Documents/EA/The Sims II/config. But I did tell you it was documents ;).

I found the Config folder but I did not have a userStartup file.  I had a userProps file, which was an .xml file and I really wasn't sure where or how to add info. into to it.  Can I just make a new file called userStartup?  If so, is it also an .xml file or an .ini file?

It is not .xml or .ini, it is userStartup.cheat

.cheat

Hmmm, don't have one at all.

You have to make it. I didn't have one before I made it. Most people don't.

I have my file on a webhost if you want some idea of what you can do with it:

http://members.chello.nl/b.kroonspecker/userstartup.cheat

Mine looks like this:


floatprop tvvolume .03

 alias moon "moveObjects on" "Enables the ability to move normally unmovable objects" ""
alias moof "moveObjects off" "Disables the ability to move normally unmovable objects" ""

alias snapoff "boolProp snapObjectsToGrid false" "Lets you move objects off the grid" ""
alias snapon "boolProp snapObjectsToGrid true" "Makes objects snap to the grid" ""

alias roton "boolProp allow45DegreeAngleOfRotation true"  "Lets you rotate objects"
alias rotoff "boolProp allow45DegreeAngleOfRotation false"  "Turns off rotate objects"

alias dorm "changeLotZoning dorm"  "Creates dorm"

alias comm "changeLotZoning community"  "Creates Community Lot"

alias res  "changeLotZoning residential"  "Creates Residential Lot"

I guess I'm more of a moron since I didn't even know you can use aliases.  So when I put my alias I tab, not space, then write the command then tab to write the "brief help".  Do I hit enter then to get to the next alias?

That should do it.

I've never used tabs in my userStartup.cheat file and have never had a problem.  I always use spaces.  All the examples I've ever seen also use spaces.  If you're having a problem with the file, you probably are doing something else wrong, like having a file named userStartup.cheat.txt which you can see by turning on all file extensions in your folder options.

Hook

Ditto, I just use spaces.