Pleasantview, Strangetown & Veronaville Project [UPDATED]

[nerd]

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?

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! 

[zombieclown]

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

[SaraMK]

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.

[zombieclown]

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

[syberspunk]

* syberspunk 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.

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

Ste

[notveryawesome]

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?

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! 

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.

[PolecatEZ]

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. 
- 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.

[Rich]

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.

Sara,

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

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. 


Thanks a Million

Rich

[SaraMK]

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.

[Rich]

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

[SaraMK]

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?

[Rich]

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

[SaraMK]

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.

[Rich]

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

[jrd]

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

[Rich]

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

[jrd]

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.

[SaraMK]

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

[Rich]

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

[syberspunk]

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.

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.

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

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

[Rich]

Thanks for the heads up syberspunk ... 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:

profs must respawn regardless, as the game requires at least 2 profs per major.

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

[syberspunk]

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 ).  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

[Rich]

Thanks Ste*if I may call you that*

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

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

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

[Singularity]

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! 

[missaaliyah]

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?