More Awesome Than You!

Sorry for the long title, but however I worded it, I couldn't get it to be any shorter without becoming incoherent.  :D

Okay, I have a problem, but first a little background. I'm a compulsive restarter. That is, if I'm not happy with the way I've done things, I'll load from the last savegame, restore a clean backup, etc, and do it all over again. I actually complete entire levels in adventure games like Tomb Raider then start again because I felt I did it too clumisily.

So some time ago, playing The Sims 2 base game, I found I wasn't happy with the way anything was going in the three default neighbourhoods, so I preserved the empty houses I wanted to keep and deleted the neighbourhoods, restoring them with a backup I'd made just after I'd installed the game. (I just zipped "C:\My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighborhoods" up and stored it) It seemed to work perfectly, but I lost interest in TS2 shortly thereafter. Recently I bought a bunch of expansions and I've gotten back into the game in a big way, and I just noticed: In both Pleasantview and Strangetown, there is one default lot missing. In Pleasantview's case, it's a community lot, the boutique, I can do without that.

In Strangetown, however, it's the Smith house that's missing. That, I can't do without. The strange thing is the Sims who are supposed to live there, Pollination Tech #9, Jenny, and their kids, appear on community lots, visit people who've just moved in, and can be invited over by people who know them, so they are there, but their lot isn't. I'm not sure how it works but looking through the game's CD's in the past I've seen two single lot files seperated from all the others, is it possible these are the missing lots? If so, that makes no sense whatsoever to me. So I thought I'd ask for help here, since this site appears to be full of geniuses.  ;)

Thanks for your time.

That sounds just like me :D

Have you tried copying and pasting the lots in the
C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2\TSData\Res\UserData\Neighborhoods\N00(1)(2)(3)\Lots
into the lot catalog in your
C:\Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighborhoods\N00(1)(2)(3)\Lots folder? It might overwite any problem lots or add old ones that have been deleted somehow.

The other thing I think of is that if your backup dates from before the EPs, it may no longer be compatible with the EP upgraded versions.  Or to put it another way, base game backup is likely not compatible with updated hood after loading UNI, OFB, NL, Seasons, etc.  Thus if you try to restore a hood using a non-compatible backup, you get strangeness.

No I haven't, I'll try that now.  :)

Yeah, I thought of that but that's not what's causing the problem because as I said I replaced the neighbourhoods with the backup before I installed the EPs.

EDIT:
I found the Smith's house. N002_Lot10. But when I copied it to 'Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighborhoods\N002\Lots' and entered the game, it still wasn't there. I also tried putting it in the Lot Catalogue with no success, it didn't appear there either. I'm positive it's the right one, I checked it in SimPE.

I had this happen as well, unrelated to installing/reinstalling, and never did get those lots back.

It is a mystery.

On the plus side, I had neither populated nor visited the lots that vanished...yet.

I do use backups when I have to add an EP or SP, and haven't lost any lots or Sims or stuff doing that (knock wood) so far.

Aww, I think your game is broken. Sorry :)

*sigh*

Ah well, the Smith family will just have to continue living in limbo. I guess I can live with that.

Thanks anyway, everyone, for your help. Much appreciated.  :)

I like the reasonably gentle response from Emma.  I believe when the disappearing lots thing happened to Lorelei, she got a rather fearsome (and probably premature) diagnosis of "Doooomed!"

If it's the same problem (and it sounds like it is) then it remains a mystery so far.  Keep going with your hood and see what happens I guess.

In order to retrieve such a missing lot, you need to extract the lot entry from a backup neighborhood where it still exists, and import that entry into your neighborhood. This is a nonstandard SimPE operation and should restore the missing lot from limbo. If you don't know how to perform this, well, then, you're SOL.

SOL? Whassat?

SOL=Shit outta luck.

I guess the kids don't say that anymore  ;)

Thanks :D People keep using abbreviations I don't know. I am so out of the loop!

You're not the only one  ;)

Yup, I was told all was DOOMED! with red moving giganto-font and lots of bangs and ones. :)

My 'hood still lives, though I don't play all that often, so maybe DOOM still awaits.

Eventually I downloaded replacement lots that I ended up liking slightly more and added a mess of Sims to the game, and have had no further mystery lot vanishings, knock wood.

Perhaps my 'hood briefly traveled to the Simuda Triangle, or I should call it Roanoke and name the next baby Virginia Dare.

Iy was truly baffling, because I had done nothing game-related whatsoever between the last time the game functioned and the next time I wanted to play. No new SPs / EPs, no new hacks/mods, no new content. no new lots. It was just fine one night and the next, lots had blinked into non-existence, and were not even in LotCat or Hood folders. It was a mystery.

As they were unoccupied, eventually I just shrugged and went on my merry way, assuming it is yet another mysterious EAxian borkage. It's been a month or so, IIRC, maybe longer. Nothing other than the usual game-related annoyances.

Currently I am having the mystery "fold-a-tree" reflecting-shape, weather-ignoring, flat, undeletable, unclickable orange trees popping up, and need to track down the culprit in CC (as I assume that some old CC tree is conflicting with the new Seasons trees or added tree functions related to weather). They have been polite about popping up in non-obnoxious places thus far, but it is only a matter of time before I get one right in the middle of a house or pool or something retardo like that.

If it happens, post pictures.

Sounds like the issue with the japanese maples. Default ones, not custom content. It's about the only thing the patch really and truly fixed.

Well, of course! All amusing things need to be preserved for posterity.

@Za-Za-ZU! (Love that nick): Hmm, must be in third patch I downloaded and thought I'd installed already.

Buggery EAxis, I should have known it was their fault and not someone else's. Heh.

I didn't really know what I was doing at first, but I looked around in SimPE and found the Smith lot in "Res\Userdata\Neighborhoods\N002\N002_Neighborhood.package", extracted it, imported it to 'my' Strangetown and started the game. And it worked! The house is now showing up and working properly. Problem solved.

Thanks for the help, this site sure does live up to it's reputation.  ;D

This is a good thing, yes? ;)

Oh yes, I expect it's a good thing - the help part anyway.  After all, the OP did not get a lot of pointing and laughing.  Be careful.  First impressions can be deceiving.

Yeah, they can.  But it's nice to see someone come in and ask a legit question.  No demands, no threats, no smarmy shit like they already know what the answer would be.   Though his avatar is making my eyes bleed  :D

Quite so.  A legit question with a decent posting style builds the collective mind and the solutions found tend to help not only the OP, but chaps like me as well who have not yet seen all the interesting problems.  I would not poke at the OP in this case, especially since I have benefitted several times myself from answers to questions.