Pleasantview, Strangetown & Veronaville Project [UPDATED]

[SaraMK]

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

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


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.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!

[BlueSoup]

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

[SaraMK]

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 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.

[Simsbaby]

Downloading. You should make a thread in Peasantry.

[BlueSoup]

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.

[Dea]

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.

10. Resurrecting Bella Goth is a bit different now. Use a teleporter to get her to a lot. Save and exit. Re-enter the lot. She will vanish. Resurrect her using the Elixir of Resurrection hack or the Resurrect-O-Thingie that came with University.

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

[SaraMK]

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.

10. Resurrecting Bella Goth is a bit different now. Use a teleporter to get her to a lot. Save and exit. Re-enter the lot. She will vanish. Resurrect her using the Elixir of Resurrection hack or the Resurrect-O-Thingie that came with University.

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.

[Sleepycat]

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

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 

[dadditude]

IMPORTANT NOTE: I DID NOT attempt to attach another Downtown, and I strongly suggest that you DO NOT attempt to do so either.

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...

[dadditude]

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.

Cleaned up template? What does that mean, precisely?

[SaraMK]

IMPORTANT NOTE: I DID NOT attempt to attach another Downtown, and I strongly suggest that you DO NOT attempt to do so either.

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...

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.

[SaraMK]

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.

Cleaned up template? What does that mean, precisely?

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.

[Sleepycat]

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?

[SaraMK]

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.

[shanpooter]

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!

[Sleepycat]

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 

[SaraMK]

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!

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.

[Annette]

Thanks SaraMK  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 

[shanpooter]

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.

[shanpooter]

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. 

[Rose Outlaw]

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. 

[Simsbaby]

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. 

That is correct.

[ElfPuddle]

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

[SaraMK]

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. 

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.

[shanpooter]

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.