TUTORIAL: Merging the Maxis neighborhoods.

[SaraMK]

I have decided to publish this tutorial, because it is not right for someone to have knowledge and not share it.

This method is significantly improved from the one I used to create the merged neighborhood that some of you downloaded. This method is much easier, and probably less likely to have glitches.

This tutorial describes using Downtown as the method of merging the neighborhoods. If you don't have NL, but do have OFB, simply follow the same instructions, but using the Blue Water template instead of the Downtown template. So when you read "attach a Downtown," you will attach Blue Water instead. If you need help making sense of the directions, I would be happy to assist you.

This tutorial assumes that you will use Pleasantview as the "base" neighborhood. You do not have to. You can use any of the three neighborhoods as the base one, and attach the other two as Downtowns.

This tutorial does not help with fixing the DNA and other problems that some Maxis sims have. There are tons of tutorials you can follow for that.

I strongly suggest reading this tutorial at least once before you even begin.


MERGING THE MAXIS NEIGHBORHOODS

Requirements:

• Ability to create adequate backups.
• Ability to read and follow instructions.
• TS2 plus either NL or OFB. You must have at least one of these EPs, but it does not matter which one.
• SimPE
• A program that can quickly rename files. I recommend the free Bulk Rename Utility from http://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk

Recommended but completely optional: I suggest you use my Cleaned Up Templates (or at least the one for Downtown), found here: http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=4306.0

Expected Time To Complete:

About 1 hour if you are good with SimPE, 2-3 hours if you are not so good but can follow instructions well.

SimPE Difficulty Level:

Easy. All that's required of you is to right-click Delete, right-click Extract, and right-click Import. If you know how to do that, you are all set. If you can follow instructions, you'll probably figure it out.


======== PART 1 ========

In Part 1, we will create and prepare some necessary files.

Step 1: Allow the game to generate a new game set with the three Maxis neighborhoods. Enter Pleasantview and attach THREE Downtowns. It does not matter what terrains you choose or what you name the Downtowns, but the first one should use the default pre-built template. Exit the game.

Step 2: Open My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighborhoods and find the N002 and N003 folders. Move them to the Desktop or other safe place. I suggest a folder called "Strangetown and Veronaville"

Step 3: Open My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighborhoods\N001 and find the files called N001_Downtown001, N001_Downtown002, and N001_Downtown003. Move all three files to the Desktop or other safe place. I suggest a folder called "The 3 Downtowns"

Step 4: Open My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2 and delete the folder called Neighborhoods.

Step 5: Allow the game to re-generate the three Maxis neighborhoods. As soon as you reach the neighborhood selection screen, delete Strangetown and Veronaville.

Step 6: Enter Pleasantview. Attach a Downtown, choosing the pre-built template. Exit the game.

Step 7: Open My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighborhoods\N001 and grab the file called N001_Downtown001, and its picture. Put them in a very, very safe place, and do not leave them anywhere in the My Documents\EA Games directory. I suggest a folder called "Finished Work"

======== PART 2 ========

In Part 2, we will make a very important backup. Yes, it's only one step, but it is the most important step in this whole tutorial, so do it right unless you want to spend several hours reinstalling your game from scratch (or at least trying to find the right file on the game CDs).

Step 1: Open C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Nightlife\TSData\Res\NeighborhoodTemplate and create a full backup of the folder called D001. Put this in a safe place.

======== PART 3 ========

In Part 3, we will extract some files using SimPE.

Step 1: Open C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Nightlife\TSData\Res\NeighborhoodTemplate and open the D001 folder. Locate the file called D001_Neighborhood. Open it in SimPE.

Step 2: On the left-hand side, locate ID Number and select it. On the right-hand side select the entry and right-click on it. From the menu, choose Extract. Save to a folder called Original_Downtown so you will know where it is.

This is an example of what your SimPE screen will look like. This is not exactly what you will see, because this picture is from a different neighborhood.


Step 3: In Part 1/Step 3, you moved three files onto the Desktop or another safe place. Those files were N001_Downtown001, N001_Downtown002, and N001_Downtown003. Find them now. Choose the file called N001_Downtown001. Open it in SimPE.

Step 4: On the left-hand side, locate ID Number and select it. On the right-hand side select the entry and right-click on it. From the menu, choose Extract. Save to a folder called Downtown_ID so you will know where it is.

Step 5: The same as Step 3, only choose the file called N001_Downtown002. Open it in SimPE.

Step 6: On the left-hand side, locate ID Number and select it. On the right-hand side select the entry and right-click on it. From the menu, choose Extract. Save to a folder called Strangetown_ID so you will know where it is.

Step 7: The same as Step 3, except choose the file called N001_Downtown003. Open it in SimPE.

Step 8: On the left-hand side, locate ID Number and select it. On the right-hand side select the entry and right-click on it. From the menu, choose Extract. Save to a folder called Veronaville_ID so you will know where it is.

Step 9: You may now delete the three original files that were created in Part 1/Step 3.

======== PART 4 ========

In Part 4, we will fool the game into thinking that Strangetown is a Downtown template.

Step 1: Open C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Nightlife\TSData\Res\NeighborhoodTemplate and open the D001 folder. Delete everything inside it.

Step 2: In Part 1/Step 2, you moved two folders onto the Desktop or another safe place. Those folders were N002 (Strangetown) and N003 (Veronaville). Find them now. Open the N002 folder. Take everything inside and move it to the D001 folder.

Step 3: Inside the D001 folder, locate the file called N002_Neighborhood. Open it in SimPE.

Step 4: On the left-hand side, locate ID Number and select it. On the right-hand side select the entry and right-click on it. From the menu, choose Delete. Save.

Step 5: Right-click anywhere on the right-hand side of the SimPE screen. From the menu, choose Import. Find the folder called Original_Downtown that you created in Part 3/Step 2. Select the file that is inside that folder, and import it. Save and exit SimPE.

Step 6: Use a renaming program to rename all files from N002_ to D001_. By "all files" I mean everything, including the ones in the Characters folder, Lots folder, Thumbnails folder....

Step 7: Start the game. Enter Pleasantview. Click the button to attach a Downtown. At this point, you should have the option to once again attach the template neighborhood. Attach it. When the neighborhood loads, click the button again to enter the new Downtown... which should be Strangetown. Once you've made sure that Strangetown was attached successfully, exit the game.

Step 8: Open My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighborhoods\N001 and find the file called N001_Downtown001, and its picture. Rename both the file and the picture to N001_Downtown002. Put them in the same safe place as you put the first one, created in Part 1/Step 7.

======== PART 5 ========

In Part 5, we will fool the game into thinking that Veronaville is a Downtown template.

Step 1: The same as Part 4/Step 1.

Step 2: In Part 1/Step 2, you moved two folders onto the Desktop or another safe place. Those folders were N002 (Strangetown) and N003 (Veronaville). Find them now. Open the N003 folder. Take everything inside and move it to the D001 folder.

Step 3: Inside the D001 folder, locate the file called N003_Neighborhood. Open it in SimPE.

Step 4: The same as Part 4/Step 4.

Step 5: The same as Part 4/Step 5.

Step 6: Use a renaming program to rename all files from N003_ to D001_. By "all files" I mean everything, including the ones in the Characters folder, Lots folder, Thumbnails folder....

Step 7: The same as Part 4/Step 7, except the new Downtown will be Veronaville. Do not follow the last step of Part 4. Just exit the game after Veronaville is successfully attached.

======== PART 6 ========

In Part 6, we will replace the default Downtown neighborhood with our backup.

Step 1: Open C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Nightlife\TSData\Res\NeighborhoodTemplate and open the D001 folder. Delete everything inside it.

Step 2: Find your backup of the original Downtown template. You created it in Part 2.

Step 3: Put the backup back where it belongs, in the D001 folder. This will restore the default Downtown template.

======== PART 7 ========

In Part 7, we will move and rename some files.

Step 1: Open My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighborhoods\N001 and find the file called N001_Downtown001. Rename the file to N001_Downtown003.

Step 2: Open the safe place where you stored the other Downtown files, created in Part 1/Step 7 and Part 4/Step 8. You should have N001_Downtown001 plus its picture (also named N001_Downtown001) and N001_Downtown002 plus its picture. Take these four files and move them to My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighborhoods\N001

Step 3: You should now have the following files inside N001: Characters (folder), Lots (folder), Storytelling (folder), Thumbnails (folder), N001_Neighborhood (file), N001_Neighborhood (picture), N001_Neighborhood.reia (file), N001_Downtown001 (file), N001_Downtown002 (file), N001_Downtown003 (file), N001_Downtown001 (picture), N001_Downtown002 (picture), and N001_Downtown003 (picture).

======== PART 8 ========

In Part 8, we will import some files using SimPE.

Step 1: Open My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighborhoods\N001 and find the file called N001_Downtown001. Open it in SimPE.

Step 2: On the left-hand side, locate ID Number and select it. On the right-hand side select the entry and right-click on it. From the menu, choose Delete.

Step 3: Right-click anywhere on the right-hand side of the SimPE screen. From the menu, choose Import. Find the folder called Downtown_ID that you created in Part 3/Step 4. Select the file that is inside that folder, and import it. Save and exit SimPE.

Step 4: Follow Step 1 and Step 2, only for N001_Downtown002.

Step 5: Right-click anywhere on the right-hand side of the SimPE screen. From the menu, choose Import. Find the folder called Strangetown_ID that you created in Part 3/Step 6. Select the file that is inside that folder, and import it. Save and exit SimPE.

Step 6: Follow Step 1 and Step 2, only for N001_Downtown003.

Step 7: Right-click anywhere on the right-hand side of the SimPE screen. From the menu, choose Import. Find the folder called Veronaville_ID that you created in Part 3/Step 8. Select the file that is inside that folder, and import it. Save and exit SimPE.

======== PART 9 ========

In Part 9, we will make a backup of our work, then enter the game and see if everything works.

Step 1: Open My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\ and make a complete backup of the Neighborhoods folder. This will allow you to restart your merged neighborhood any time you want to!

Step 2: Run the game. Enter Pleasantview. Click the Downtown button.

Step 3: You should be looking at a selection screen with 3 Downtowns to choose from. One should be called Downtown, one should be called Veronaville, and one should be called Strangetown. The pictures should be correct for each.

Step 4: Load each Downtown and make sure everything looks okay. Load at least one lot in each Downtown, to make sure the lots are okay.

======== PART 10 ========

In Part 10 you find out that you should not whine to me if this tutorial is too hard, or if you fail to make a backup and your game blows up as a result. However, I am certainly around to help if something needs clarification or if you need help with some part of this tutorial.

[Nova]

I've been wanting to attempt this tutorial since you first posted it, and just today had the time to try.  Everything turned out perfectly and it didn't take much time at all.  About 1 1/2 hours and that's with a newborn, two year old and five year old running me ragged at the same time.   Thanks for the great info.

[Oliver]

It's an amazing tutorial, thank you.
I've tried to merge the neighborhoods with SimPE and I failed . With your tutorial I get my custom build neighborhood merged with the Maxis ones and it works perfect.
May I post a german translation of your tutorial in the SimForum and on our website?

Regards,
Oliver

[SaraMK]

May I post a german translation of your tutorial in the SimForum and on our website?

Regards,
Oliver

Sure, go ahead.

[bimbelina]

OMG,thanks so much for this.  I tried it with new unplayed hoods, and it worked great.  But I've been playing a lot in Pleasantview, and wanted to move Strangetown and Veronaville in to that copy of Pleasantview.  It took a few tries to determine what changes to make to the steps, but in the end it worked!  Thank you, thank you, thank you...

[zombieclown]

I bow to you. I've been wanting to do this since TS2 came out! Works like a charm!

[tabbs]

I tried doing this and currently I was on Part 4 step 7 - but when I went into that area they dont have houses. I'm not sure what I did wrong or how to even fix it. I know I did something wrong I just dont know what. 

[SaraMK]

I tried doing this and currently I was on Part 4 step 7 - but when I went into that area they dont have houses. I'm not sure what I did wrong or how to even fix it. I know I did something wrong I just dont know what. 

Did you rename ALL files, including those in the Lots folder? That would be the most obvious cause of missing houses, if what you are saying is that you have Strangetown but it has no houses in it.

[seapup]

Pardon my extreme unawesomeness, but wouldn't this create the "Strangetown Bella in Pleasantview" BFBVFS problem? I am just curious, feel free to point at me and laugh, or poke me with a stick. (I prefer pointy sticks).

[SaraMK]

Pardon my extreme unawesomeness, but wouldn't this create the "Strangetown Bella in Pleasantview" BFBVFS problem? I am just curious, feel free to point at me and laugh, or poke me with a stick. (I prefer pointy sticks).

Stragetown's Bella is just a townie. There is nothing special about her. She has no connection to the Goths in Pleasantview.

So, yes, you'll have two "Bella" sims, but it won't hurt your game.

[SaraMK]

I didn't understand this in part 3:
Step 6: On the left-hand side, locate ID Number and select it. On the right-hand side select the entry and right-click on it. From the menu, choose Export. Save to a folder called Strangetown_ID so you will know where it is.

Which entry I must select? Right-clicking on anything on the right hand side does not show me a menu with the Export option

It might be a change in the newer versions of SimPE, or maybe I made a mistake when typing it up. The option in SimPE 0.58 is EXTRACT, not Export.



Thanks for catching that. I'll update it.

[zombieclown]

I've been playing the game with this setup for a couple of weeks now and loving it.

I've seen a few different things, such as the names of some of the townies, like in Strangetown, Lazlo Curious' girlfriend looks the same, but her name is not Crystal Vu. And Vidcund Curious does not automatically get abducted on the next telescope use. But these things in no way have negatively affected the game.

Combining the neighborhoods in my game is neat, because now Mortimer Goth and Consort Capp are becoming good friends, Ajay Loner and Bianca Monty just had a baby, and I'm getting ready to combine a few more family trees, once I get Dirk Dreamer and Ophelia Nigmos together.

Sometimes it takes a little longer for a community lot to load, but all-in-all it was worth it, and I'd highly recommend this tutorial for anyone who can't decide which neighborhood to play.

[zombieclown]

Another thing I noticed last night. I sent my Sim to Gothier Green Lawns to fulfill a "See a Ghost want". But oddly enough, there were no tombstones on the lot...

[SaraMK]

Another thing I noticed last night. I sent my Sim to Gothier Green Lawns to fulfill a "See a Ghost want". But oddly enough, there were no tombstones on the lot...

Is the Tricou family still in the Downtown neighborhood, either dead or alive?

[zombieclown]

I'll check about the Tricou family. The other odd thing I noticed is all the tombstones on the Specter lot are gone now too

[SaraMK]

Weird. Mine were all still in place.

What I suggest you do is download the "Elixir of Resurrection" hack by Christianlov at MTS2, and see if the dead sims are resurrectable using that. If YES, then you might have suffered the vanishing tomstone glitch. If NO, then it could be something in the merging process, in which case I'll try to do some experiments and see where it might be going wrong.

[zombieclown]

I know it wasn't the merging process, because I've played both the Specter house and the Gothier Green Lawns, tombstones and everything. So it's gotta some tombstone-be-gone glitch...

[SaraMK]

Well, all I can say is, get Pescado's "nounlinkondelete" hack, because the tombstone glitch is a very nasty glitch that a lot of people seem to be suffering from. At least with the hack you will not lose the character files of dead sims, and you can respawn the tombstones if they vanish.

[travellersside]

You know, I really wish this had been around earlier in the year when I did mine. I spent an immense amount of effort visiting lots, using an item-stay object, shifting sims into another lot so that when exported they kept relationships, moving them back again when in a new neighbourhood etc. After importing the saved lots into the right places and decorating the new enighbourhoods of course!
And that's without the heavy editing in SimPE to dump relationships and memories, and to fix cash and ages.
I ended up with a neighbourhood that's got each of the Maxis ones as a sub-neighbourhood, and also all 3 Universities. Works fine - no problems so far, although as part of this, I had to strip out all dead family members, so the trees are a bit shorter.

Sigh. And using this method I could have done most of it in a short afternoon?

Kudos to you.

I'm assuming that the extra sub-neighourhoods don't generate their own share of Townies, since you're tricking the game into thinking that the neighbourhoods were already there. The first draft of my method showed this up, when having three Universities gave me 3 times the number of dormies.

It'd be nice to know what your census figures were at the end of this. Good work.

[spookymuffin]

Thanks for this, worked without any problems as far as I can see.

[SaraMK]

It'd be nice to know what your census figures were at the end of this. Good work.

I purged all my neighborhood templates of excess townies and NPCs, so I don't really know how many sims you would get if you worked with completely unedited copies.

Strangetown and Veronaville both have full sets of townies and NPCS. So, if you add those two neighborhoods as Downtowns, those sims will come along.

However, adding Strangetown and Veronaville to Pleasantview did not result in any NEW downtownies being spawned. I assume that by merging the neighborhoods you end up with: 170+179+181+78=608 which is the number of Characters in each of the 4 neighborhoods involved.

[miramis]

Well I finally got around to trying this..and stumbled a little at first.  Around 3 hours(ish) later it's all finished and working as far as I can tell.  That's the first time I've used SimPe, last time it would crash as soon as I opened it, so this is quite a milestone   Thanks for taking the time to write this walkthrough, it's much appreciated.

[OpiumGirl]

Thank you very much for this tutorial
This may be a completely newbish question (though I've played with simpe a bit with meshing and neighborhood alterations), but is it possible to use all custom neighborhoods rather than any of the Maxis ones?  And if so, are there any unique steps to this method? I was assuming that rather than opening the Maxis hoods, I could just open custom hoods in replacement, but then I failed to trust myself in doing so without asking, lol.
Obviously I'd do all of this only after backing up my current hoods...in case you wondered if I even knew that much.
thank you for any advice!

[SaraMK]

Thank you very much for this tutorial
This may be a completely newbish question (though I've played with simpe a bit with meshing and neighborhood alterations), but is it possible to use all custom neighborhoods rather than any of the Maxis ones?  And if so, are there any unique steps to this method? I was assuming that rather than opening the Maxis hoods, I could just open custom hoods in replacement, but then I failed to trust myself in doing so without asking, lol.
Obviously I'd do all of this only after backing up my current hoods...in case you wondered if I even knew that much.
thank you for any advice!

Yes, you can use custom neighborhoods, as long as they don't have attached sub-neighborhoods (I haven't tested what would happen if they did, so I can't say one way or the other what might happen). If one has attached sub-neighborhoods and one does not, you could use the one that does as the "base" neighborhood.

I don't think there would be any extra or different steps. You would just modify the steps slightly, and depending on how many neighborhoods you want to attach, you would need more or fewer steps overall. As far as I can see right now, the biggest difference would be in Part 3, just because your neighborhoods are different.

Without knowing exactly what your custom neighborhoods are like, I can't suggest specific steps to take. Here's one example I can think of:

Custom Nhood #1: Has a University and a Downtown attached
Custom Nhood #2: Does not have anything attached

First, make a complete backup of all the neighborhoods.

If they are both in the same game set (let's say #1 is N001 and #2 is N002) you would need to remove N002 before you begin. Load the game and delete N002, leaving just N001 in the neighborhood selection screen (other custom neighborhoods, if any, do not have to be removed). Now load N001 and attach a second Downtown to it. Your N001 folder will now have the files N001_Downtown001 and N001_Downtown002. Remove both of these files and put them somewhere safe (like the Desktop). You will not be making any changes to Downtown001. Downtown002 is the one you will rip a file out of and then delete (the file you rip out is like the one that would go into a folder called Strangetown_ID according to the tutorial).

Do Part 2 and Part 3 like the tutorial says, but when you do Part 3 you should stop at Step 3. After Step 3 you will need to modify the steps simply because you don't have those neighborhoods. You will need the file extracted from the Downtown template, and you will need the file extracted from your N001_Downtown002 file, so follow the tutorial where it explains how to do that.

Now do the process of fooling the game into thinking that N002 is a Downtown template. Just like the tutorial says in Part 4, except obviously use the files that were created in the modified Part 3.

Once you have attached the custom neighborhood as a Downtown, the rest should be exactly like the tutorial says. I can't think of any other changes you would need to make, other than not doing things that don't pertain to your neighborhoods.


If your neighborhoods all have sub-neighborhoods attached, you could attempt to use them, but I have no idea what the result will be. Remove any files that pertain to the sub-neighborhoods before you begin. That means any files like N002_University001, N002_Downtown001, and so on. Just delete them from the folder. I can't guarantee that this will work, but maybe the game won't choke on the extra files when you try to use that neighborhood as a template. I don't know if there is anything inside the main neighborhood file that would still point to the existance of those sub-neighborhoods... if there is, the game could become screwed up as a result. Also, very likely, the characters that were attached to those sub-neighborhoods (like for Uni it could be professors, dormies, and mascots) may become screwed up in unknown ways. Again, I have never attempted anything like this, so do this at your own risk.

[OpiumGirl]

Great, thank you for the info, Sara.  My second neighborhood is actually empty and I wanted to merge it with my populated neighborhood simply because the custom neighborhood I used is way to big (in terms of actual size, not population.)   So, in doing this, I was hoping to eventually be able to move all of my existing sims (or future sims) into a smaller hood that won't drain my cpu like my existing one does.
My populated hood that I'm going to try this with has a downtown, university and shopping district.  If any of that may screw things up, let me know.
I'm going to attempt this within the next couple of days though, and I'll post my results.
Your help is much appreciated!