MATYhood and the big fiery ball from space

[simmiecal]

When a neighborhood blows up, does it only corrupt a neighborhood, all your neighborhoods, or your entire installation?

I've been wondering about the shared hood we are creating. Everyone is contributing to the hood with the expectation that people will download the hood and play it. I want to be clear on the installation instructions...so people understand what risk they may be assuming if they decide to install the hood, but I'm not really clear of the risks myself. While I wouldn't want to loose any of my personal hoods, I've not invested anywhere near the time and effort that some others have in their personal hoods.

1. If there is a problem with the shared hood and it blows up, will it harm the player's other hoods?

2. If sims are imported with a lot, but the lot had been created in an empty neighborhood with no other character interactions, is it ok to install the sim?

3. If we are a little more risky and install sims that were played in another hood and interacted with other characters, is it a problem if all those characters are imported into the hood?  Clarification: one of the back stories we are developing, a user is playing three households and developing a story between these three households (and taking pictures for the back story). If all three households are imported and they are the only ones they have interacted with in the original hood, is that ok?

4. If people have windows 2000 or XP and create a separate user account for the shared hood, since this creates separate directories for each user account, would this protect the player's personal hoods if the shared hood blows up?

Thanks for your help.

[J. M. Pescado]

When a neighborhood blows up, does it only corrupt a neighborhood, all your neighborhoods, or your entire installation?

Usually only the exploding neighborhood is affected. Others usually are unharmed.

1. If there is a problem with the shared hood and it blows up, will it harm the player's other hoods?

Not unless the other player's computer is within the blast radius, or the problem is inherent to the download.

2. If sims are imported with a lot, but the lot had been created in an empty neighborhood with no other character interactions, is it ok to install the sim?

This should be safe if everyone on the lot has never interacted with anyone else off the lot. This includes when they appear as autonomous visitors, so watch out!

Note that the source neighborhood will be holed and gutted by this. Also, if packaged, every hack in your downloads directory will hitch a ride.

3. If we are a little more risky and install sims that were played in another hood and interacted with other characters, is it a problem if all those characters are imported into the hood?  Clarification: one of the back stories we are developing, a user is playing three households and developing a story between these three households (and taking pictures for the back story). If all three households are imported and they are the only ones they have interacted with in the original hood, is that ok?

No. All characters must be part of a single household. Otherwise you'll end up importing 9 families worth of people. And your neighborhood will explode in a big fiery ball that is visible from space.

4. If people have windows 2000 or XP and create a separate user account for the shared hood, since this creates separate directories for each user account, would this protect the player's personal hoods if the shared hood blows up?

There are generally no side effects that traverse neighborhoods when a neighborhood explodes, although a sufficiently corrupted neighborhood may prevent your game from loading at all until the offending neighborhood is deleted.

[eaglezero]

Couldn't you zip like, the ENTIRE neighborhood folder? Like, if it's supposed to be the ninth neighborhood (I think that's what was discussed) you'd have like, N009.zip (or rar, whichever), which, sure, would take a while to download, but would avoid the BFBVFS possibilities of packaging and importing individual lots (since, this way, everyone could have relationships with everyone else, including people in other houses, that would be preserved). Of course, I think this means you'd have to zip the custom content seperately, but that's a small price to play for a fun neighborhood that won't blow up.

edited to add: I say this because that's how I thought it was going to be. It seems like the logical way, although, of course, I haven't ever tried it so I don't know if it would work. But I'm guessing it would, since I made a second Pleasantview, and that's basically the same process. It means a little bit more work for the person on the receiving end, but it's probably the only way you can get everyone to have a backstory, which would be far more exciting to play than just sims in lots.

[simmiecal]

Couldn't you zip like, the ENTIRE neighborhood folder? Like, if it's supposed to be the ninth neighborhood (I think that's what was discussed) you'd have like, N009.zip (or rar, whichever), which, sure, would take a while to download, but would avoid the BFBVFS possibilities of packaging and importing individual lots (since, this way, everyone could have relationships with everyone else, including people in other houses, that would be preserved). Of course, I think this means you'd have to zip the custom content seperately, but that's a small price to play for a fun neighborhood that won't blow up.

edited to add: I say this because that's how I thought it was going to be. It seems like the logical way, although, of course, I haven't ever tried it so I don't know if it would work. But I'm guessing it would, since I made a second Pleasantview, and that's basically the same process. It means a little bit more work for the person on the receiving end, but it's probably the only way you can get everyone to have a backstory, which would be far more exciting to play than just sims in lots.

That's exactly how I intend to distribute the neighborhood, but my concern was with the lots and sims being sent to me to add to the neighborhood. I'm not very technical and I just want to make sure I'm not sending out a trojan horse that is going to cause problems for the people who download the hood. I am working with several different MATY members to develop back stories for some of the sims - like how there was an existing romance between Dina and Don and Cassandra and Don and, well, any Pleasantville female and Don.  We are putting together snapshots for people to read to get an idea of the history for the sims. It will be interesting to see where everyone takes the stories (and to see if they think the stories interesting enough to play) and we will all have a common starting point.

But, this means combining a lot of stuff in the hood. I just want to take all precautions possible so as to not cause a problem and to be able to adequately warn people if installing the hood might cause them problems.

[cwykes]

How about pre-Uni lots JM?  from a patched game - I'd hate to send something with the bug that wiped out happy valley!  I only found that thread last week and it scared me spitless

simmiecal - my sims haven't met anyone and I cleaned out the memories of the odd encounter with a persistent passer by - they are all on one lot so they remember each other and I'm 99% sure that my bit is OK

[angelyne]

I think that at the very minimum, all the families being sent to you and incorporated into the hood needs to be checked with clean installer.  You should be able to determine if any hacks hitched a ride.  Also check out the character files included in the file.  You should only have the characters files that corresponds to the family.  If you get extra files, they correspond to the sims they have interacted with and these will end up as stub files, I believe.  This is what you want to avoid.

Also, while neighbourhoods are separate and can't impact other neighbourhoods, the same cannot be said of the custom content in the download folder, as all neigbourhood share that.

You probably know all this, but better too much info rather than not enough

Oh what is this scary bug you are talked about Cwykes?

[Nihale]

If it's the bug that I think it is, it'll be what happened to Greg (SimsHost) - which was this

[cwykes]

thanks for the link.  Looks like my lots are safe because I made them all post-patch.  Sighs with relief....  Simmiecal was going to go in and add a pond weed just to be sure!