Empty and Cleaned-up Templates. [UPDATED]

[Aggie]

All the Uni neighborhoods have a secret society lot already, except one. It's the Academie one. Try entering Academie and seeing if the SS lots show up in the bin. They won't show up in any of the other Unis because you can only have one SS lot and they already have them.

All NPCs, including secret society members, are generated on demand (when the game decides it "needs" them... whether you agree or not). The empty / clean templates do not stop NPCs from being generated. However, some hacks may prevent NPCs from being generated. For example, nossregen may prevent you from getting any SS NPCs.

D'oh! I forgot that Academie doesn't have a Secret Society. That's what the problem is. Thanks for clearing that up for me.

[SaraMK]

That's why it's my favorite. I can avoid having any SS sims at all simply by not having an SS lot.

[Aggie]

Actually, if you want to know the truth, the only reason I had wanted one was because I had accidentally had my Self Sim's daughter (who was going to be the heiress to the start of my new Legacy attempt) get struck by lightning in the hot tub (twice!) and she was killed. Her twin brother (who was best friends with her) failed to successfully plead with the Reaper to save her, so I thought the best thing to use to save her in Uni was a Secret Society Resurrecto-nomitron (they have one of those, don't they?). Ah well; it's a moot point now anyways.

[SimFeliz]

Thank you for your help. Nothing I tired worked. I seem to have all the files in place. I even took out my downloads & Mods to see if that made a difference. It's strange how the Desert Uni works fine though.

I tried the suggestion of checking for errors. I got this
Error TS audio music category (Buy) listed twice in category property set.\source\TSaudio music manager.cpp (1651).
This repeats the same for build and CAS too.

If worse comes to it I will just reinstall as I always back up so it's not much of an issue, just too lazy to go through the whole install if I don't have to.

[J. M. Pescado]

I tried the suggestion of checking for errors. I got this
Error TS audio music category (Buy) listed twice in category property set.\source\TSaudio music manager.cpp (1651).
This repeats the same for build and CAS too.

Those errors are normal and harmless, just ignore those.

[rosenshyne]

All the Uni neighborhoods have a secret society lot already, except one. It's the Academie one. Try entering Academie and seeing if the SS lots show up in the bin.

Which ones are the SS Lots?

[SaraMK]

Secret Society lots are invisible from the neighborhood view (invisible house! w00t!). Once a sim joins the secret society, they can visit the lot.

If your Uni doesn't have a SS lot, then the lot bin will have some secret society lots that you can plunk down (they are labeled as SS lots). If the Uni already has one, then those lots won't be available in the bin. Also, a new SS lot can be created by turning any lot into an SS lot using the appropriate cheat code.

[Magicmoon]

After updating for Seasons, I started a clean hood, devoid of townies. After creation I checked with SimPe and the only characters that I had were the neighborhood strays (by design).

I start playing the hood. When I finally took some Sims downtown, a Sim named Chase Hayes shows up on the lot. Since I am using TwoJeff's visitor controller, I attempted to ban him, first by banning townies, and then by banning down-townies, but he never disappeared off of the lot.

Opening his file in SimPe, he is the only Sim in the Hayes family. NPC's, professors, and defaults are listed under the Pope family. He is listed as an adult townie, no Uni, is unemployed and has no skills. (I'm pretty sure that standard townies are given random skills and a job, aren't they?)

The best that I can figure is that he is the Mystery Sim that all of my CAS Sims had their first kiss with.

So where did he come from? How do I stop any more of these from being made? How can I get rid of him? I don't fully understand the instructions from the thread that discusses using the lot debugger to prep a Sim for delete. I could just kill him off since there is only one of his type, but since I can't figure out where he came from, the game may make another to replace him unless I figure out this enigma.

Sorting by filename in SimPe, he is user #23. If Sims are assigned filenames in the order that they are created, strays were spawned first, then some of my playables, then he was created just after the papergirl was made, but before I finished making all of my playable Sims. IIRC, I created several Sims, moved them into a lot to make adjustments, at which time the papergirl was created and appeared on the lot and this mystery character was created, but did not appear on the lot as far as I know.

ETA: I just remembered that I placed a lot from the lot bin that had a Coffee Bar in it. IIRC, sometimes old NPC's can hitchhike with these. Now that I think about it, ACR complained that one Sim did not have a token when I visited this lot. Is this the possible cause of this mystery Sim? But if so, then why isn't he in the Pope family with the rest of the NPC's, and why is he behaving as a townie rather than an NPC?

[Kyna]

If he has a gold gardening badge, then he's probably the gardening club NPC.  They don't get put in the NPC family, they get their own family.  On his SDSC screen, is his family instance 0x7FF6?  That's the gardening club family instance in my 'hoods.

He is normally created the first time you play a lot in a new neighbourhood, which would explain why he's near the papergirl in character creation.  Presumably TJ's visitor controller can prevent the creation of gardening club NPCs if you ban them as soon you go into the first lot, before they have a chance to be created - I never bother banning them, as he only visits once in the neighbourhood unless invited (unlike the gypsy who visits every lot).

If you have a sim apply for membership in the gardening club, you'll get another 2-3 sims created in that family.  They seem to need a group of 3 to assess a lot.

[Magicmoon]

So does your Garden guy show up on comm lots as a visitor? None of the other NPC's do. I don't want him mingling with my playables. No fraternization!

The family instance is 0x7FF6. No badges showing in SimPe though. But he does have an invisible memory of "Get a Bronze Gardening Talent Badge". He is wearing a green Polo shirt.

[SaraMK]

Garden Club NPC's act exactly like townies. They show up on community lots and interract with everyone.

[Magicmoon]

Thanks for your answers. The unusual behavior had left me totally confused. Now that I know what is going on, I can find a way to deal with it. Since I started my hood in Uni, I haven't had any visits from Gardening Personnel, so I had no idea which Sims might belong in that category.

[SimFeliz]

I did a lot of testing. It's not the templates causing me trouble. I tested each EP and SP and found out its seasons causing me the grief. I read on another forum that someone else had the same issue.

La Fiesta Rech works fine. Sim state Uni will load but the neighborhood screen is extremely slow and choppy and Academie Le Tour gets stuck on the loading screen. Custom Uni's also seem fine.

I really wanted to use Academie Le Tour as I like the layout of the neighborhood and the lots. Is it possible to use this template on a custom Uni neighborhood including lots?

[ladyl]

Hi! I'm totally new at this and really when it comes to computers so thanks for your patience and time... I currently have the base game and NL installed, been playing for some time now. I recently bought OFB & Pets and have not installed them yet as I think getting your advice before I do anything stupid is the best thing to do! My question is:

1) I would like to install my new OFB & Pets EPs and start playing my game with the totally fresh neighbourhoods (with the maxis lots and houses but without all the default characters). How should I go about doing that without messing things up? Should I jus go ahead and install OFB & Pets then 'cleanup' the neighbourhoods with your downloads? Or best to re-install everything?

Summary Of My Game:
Currently Installed & Played= Sims2 Base & Nightlife only
New EPs (hv yet to install)= OFB & Pets
Com= imac intel core 2 duo (unable to use SIMPE etc)

Thanks A Million! 

[SaraMK]

Hi! I'm totally new at this and really when it comes to computers so thanks for your patience and time... I currently have the base game and NL installed, been playing for some time now. I recently bought OFB & Pets and have not installed them yet as I think getting your advice before I do anything stupid is the best thing to do! My question is:

1) I would like to install my new OFB & Pets EPs and start playing my game with the totally fresh neighbourhoods (with the maxis lots and houses but without all the default characters). How should I go about doing that without messing things up? Should I jus go ahead and install OFB & Pets then 'cleanup' the neighbourhoods with your downloads? Or best to re-install everything?

There is no need to reinstall your game.

Install OFB and Pets one after the other, but do not run the game after installation completes. Follow the instructions I gave and install my empty templates. Then start playing. That's all you need to do.

If you run the game after installing the Pets EP, a lot of characters (including dozens of strays) will be dumped into each of your neighborhoods. So it's very important that you install the empty templates before playing. The Pets (and Seasons) EP's automatically attach a sub-hood (which cannot be visited like the Nightlife sub-hood) to every neighborhood that you already have or create. The only way to stop this is to install the empty templates as soon as you install Pets (or Seasons) and before running the game after installing.

I hope that helps you decide what to do.

[SaraMK]

I really wanted to use Academie Le Tour as I like the layout of the neighborhood and the lots. Is it possible to use this template on a custom Uni neighborhood including lots?

I'm pretty sure that Maxis did not include the sc4 terrains for the Universities, so you probably can't create a custom one using the terrain. You could, however, package up the empty lots and put them in a different terrain.

[ladyl]

Hi! I'm totally new at this and really when it comes to computers so thanks for your patience and time... I currently have the base game and NL installed, been playing for some time now. I recently bought OFB & Pets and have not installed them yet as I think getting your advice before I do anything stupid is the best thing to do! My question is:

1) I would like to install my new OFB & Pets EPs and start playing my game with the totally fresh neighbourhoods (with the maxis lots and houses but without all the default characters). How should I go about doing that without messing things up? Should I jus go ahead and install OFB & Pets then 'cleanup' the neighbourhoods with your downloads? Or best to re-install everything?

There is no need to reinstall your game.

Install OFB and Pets one after the other, but do not run the game after installation completes. Follow the instructions I gave and install my empty templates. Then start playing. That's all you need to do.

If you run the game after installing the Pets EP, a lot of characters (including dozens of strays) will be dumped into each of your neighborhoods. So it's very important that you install the empty templates before playing. The Pets (and Seasons) EP's automatically attach a sub-hood (which cannot be visited like the Nightlife sub-hood) to every neighborhood that you already have or create. The only way to stop this is to install the empty templates as soon as you install Pets (or Seasons) and before running the game after installing.

I hope that helps you decide what to do.

Thanks!
1) Do I have to worry about the memories of all the sims, townies,npcs etc from my past few weeks of palying the base game + NL? Furthermore I had quite a number of log errors from that time (had to use the 'boolprop testingcheatsenabled true' just to get into lots, it's sloved now though)... Will that all affect the new installations?
2) Ermmm... Which of your templates should I actually download? (I would like the default playable sims without the townies/npcs/downtownies...) 

Thanks Again!

[SaraMK]

Your current neighborhoods won't be affected by installing new EP's or by installing empty templates. As alwyas, you should make a backup of your neighborhoods before installing any new EP's.

As for 2), it sounds like you want the cleaned up templates rather than the empty ones. The only difference is that empty templates have no sims at all, while the cleaned up ones have the Maxis playable sims.

[ladyl]

I plan to start my game 'afresh' therefore I will still backup, but I won't be replacing any folders with the backup copy... Do I need to replace my current Pleasantview, StrangeTown & Veronaville folders with your Cleaned & Fixed ones 1st (so that these 3 neighbourhoods would be clean and fresh?

This is what I plan to do, do correct me if I'm wrong Thanks... 

Replace all my current Pleasantview, StrangeTown & Veronaville folders with your Cleaned & Fixed ones --> Replace my current NL folders with your Cleaned Up Templates for NL (Downtown) ---> Install OFB & Pets --->Install your Cleaned Up Templates for OFB & Pets ---> Run the Game!

Thanks Again! I really appreciate it! 

[SaraMK]

If you want to restart (and to play) the Maxis neighborhoods, and you want them to have only the Maxis playable sims (but not townies and NPC's) then you need to replace them with the Cleaned/Fixed ones and then allow the game to regenerate the Maxis neighborhoods. That can be done by removing the Neighborhoods folder from the My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\ directory. When that folder is missing, the game regenerateds the Maxis neighborhoods for you.

So, yes, the steps you posted will be fine, as long as the Neighborhoods folder has been removed or deleted from the My Documents directory before you run the game.

[Rose Outlaw]

What did I probably do wrong when the following problem comes up:
Sim State university got replaced with the cleaned up version and was attached to Pleasantview.
If you click on an occupied lot - say the place of that artist, Hmhmhm O'Keefe or whatever her name is - the lot info screen pops up with the correct name and lot data, yet no thumbnail or info of the inhabitant.
Feeling brave aka stupid, I intended to load the lot anyway to see what happens - well, the game crashes.

Hmm.

[SaraMK]

What, if anything, did you do to the Characters folder and the Lots folder?

[Rose Outlaw]

Lots folder - nothing I suppose, as I can't recall doing anything with it.

Characters - deleted the original files and extracted those from the cleaned-up template.
Would it be a bad idea to simply extract the Characters template folder again and either delete/replace the existing files or overwrite them ... in case I ever wish to leave the currently played merged neighbourhood again ?

[SaraMK]

Well, you can extract the character files again into the Program Files directory... it won't hurt anything, and might fix things. Of course, it will only fix things for future neighborhoods, not the current ones.

Doing anything to the files in Program Files won't help with the current neighborhood that's screwed up. I don't know what might have caused that. Did you try yanking the sim out of the house? It could be a simple corruption... random. Do any of the other houses crash?

[Rose Outlaw]

Hehehe, I'm a bad tester - instead of trying different houses, I got rid of the whole neighbourhood (a fresh start of Pleasantview) and went back to my favoruite hood.

But true, I'm going to prevent surprises for future tries with single neighbourhoods and will go double-checking the Program Files folders.