TUTORIAL: Merging the Maxis neighborhoods.

[SaraMK]

If I understand this all correctly then,  the corrupt tokens only cause a problem if you resurrect them through normal methods. IE. Using one of the downtownie teens with a tricou as a father, sending them to college, a job in the paranormal career, and using the Grim Reaper phone. I'm guessing the phone doesn't clear the death tokens properly?

Actually, the problem occurs no matter how you resurrect them. The tokens MUST be deleted before you make any attempt to resurrect any of them. Otherwise, the damage gets done and you have to clean up a lot of junk in SimPE. Since SimPE's memory editor isn't very good, this is very undesirable.

[FlamingoKicker]

OK, I used the Tombstone of L&D to Spawn some of the missing ghosts from my merged neighborhood and they would appear and then disappear and the dialogue box pops up saying "Such and such has died on another lot" and I figured their ghost or tombstone would now be back on the lot where they had died previously.

So I went and looked on the other lot where I knew they had originally died in my game and nope, there was no ghost or urn or tombstone there.

Doesn't the ghost have to exist on a given lot before you can regenerate their missing tombstone?  So unless you can get their ghost back I guess you can't recreate their tombstones?

[Liveangel]

I know this is a dead thred, but i'm not gonna let that stop me from resurecting it to ask a non-awesome question.

I attached Strangetown as a Downtown and Veronaville as a Shopping District, but when i entered pleasentview, the oringal, already-attached Downtown and blue water are gone! Help!

Also ST and VV have swopped albums, as in, ST album has some stuff about the montys and capps, and VV album is about aliens! I don't really care, but, it's something i found out.

[SaraMK]

I know this is a dead thred, but i'm not gonna let that stop me from resurecting it to ask a non-awesome question.

I attached Strangetown as a Downtown and Veronaville as a Shopping District, but when i entered pleasentview, the oringal, already-attached Downtown and blue water are gone! Help!

Also ST and VV have swopped albums, as in, ST album has some stuff about the montys and capps, and VV album is about aliens! I don't really care, but, it's something i found out.

What did you do with the Downtown00# and Suburb00# that belonged to Downtown and Blue Water? If you were following my tutorial, you needed to put them back in at the end of it. Not putting them back in would obviously make them not appear.

Also, did you take any shortcuts when it came to swapping Number IDs? Having Downtown and Strangetown share a Number ID would certainly make one not show up.

No idea on the photo albums. I haven't seen them switch places like that, but it's normal for albums to be lost during the whole merging process, so you'll have to redo them, I guess.

[nerd]

Just wanted to say thanks for this Sara. Downloaded your merged hood and against all odds managed to add Riverblossom Hills as a shopping district. So now my hood is complete!

[Phaenoh]

M'kay, I get that Necromancy is bad, but this is a Tutorial Thread, so doesn't that counter out some of the badness? I also get that this is my second post here, but I've been silently reading on and off for a while now, so please don't just write me off as a n00b, GTFO. I'm a creator over at MTS2 and I know my way around SimPE well enough, but all the sneaky technical stuff that MATY has is very appealing. Recently I just went through and fixed all the genetics of Strangetown and Veronaville, and I'd been renaming all the Townies I have because I can. It has only recently come to my attention that deleting characters from the SimBin is bad and I've been working on Deleted 2 cleaning up the mess.

I'm still playing on the very first copies of the original neighborhoods my game shipped with and I've sheltered those neighborhoods through a MAC to PC transplant and a few hardrive reformats, my sims are a hardy bunch, and I'll fight to keep them. I have all the EPs and currently my game holds Pleasantview, with one Uni, a never played Downtown, and a custom suburb, and I also have some foundling sim stories in Strangetown (has a never-been-played Uni attached), Veronaville (also with a never-played Uni), and only one family really worth keeping in Riverblossom (has a never-played Uni and Bluewater attached as well). I know you that you can't move partial neighborhoods but I'm not sure if that one family is worth taking the rest of the neighborhood with it. Also, I'm pretty sure they all had the Default Downtown attached at some point, but they have been since removed, Pleasantview also had a Bluewater and all three Vacation spots. Not sure about the repercussions of that action, especially considering I've never used empty templates or notownieregen type mods.

I'd like to end up with two main neighborhoods in the end. I want Pleasantview to have 2 Uni's, a Downtown, and Strangetown and my custom hood as Subs. Veronaville will be my second with 1 or 2 Uni's, Downtown, and Riverblossom and Bluewater as Subs. From reading your tutorial, and between the lines of it and every other MATY thread on merged hoods I could find, my plan is, make backups like mad, clear out any satellite hoods (possible VBT) from the 2 that will be moving, and use my them as the new templates, this should transfer my simmies, their land, their memories, their photo albums, their pets and townies, and any VBTs that happen to be lurking in my neighborhood that I have yet to discover. But in theory, it should work.

I have a few questions about it all though.
1. Is my plan possible? Assuming I'm the most techno-savy person on the planet (which I'm not), somethings are just flat out impossible. I hate running into those things farther down the line so I've been learning to ask this question first.
2 .About my deleted subhoods, how bad, and do I fix?
3. Previously deleted sims (they were all sims that never met anyone: testers or duplicate maxis binnies), I need to locate and destroy their SWAFs, DNA, Relationships, and their character package. Are these the only (and correct) files I need to nuke?
4. I'm going to end up with two sets of townies by doing this, since they already exist in both hoods. Would it be better to cleanse my hoods of them by just using SimPe like I will be doing for my previously deleted ones, or would it be better to follow the standard Deleted 2 method?
5. How safe/unsafe will it be to add more OFB hoods later? Each of them now will have 2, a few posts suggested that EAxis got a bit smarter with the ofb subhood ID number creation than it was with NL.

Thanks for helping me piece my neighborhoods together, they always felt like they were incomplete and missing what the other had. Any help/suggestions/criticism appreciated.

[IAmTheRad]

The Free Time neighbourhood (even without simpe updated) works fine added as an alternate 'shopping' district. I have it like that... downtown, strange town, and veronaville are my downtowns, bluewater, riverblossom, and free time neighbourhood are my shopping districts.

[nerd]

The Free Time neighbourhood (even without simpe updated) works fine added as an alternate 'shopping' district. I have it like that... downtown, strange town, and veronaville are my downtowns, bluewater, riverblossom, and free time neighbourhood are my shopping districts.

Simpe didn't want to extract the id from the FT hood for me, which is rather annoying. 

[IAmTheRad]

When the neighbourhoods were merged... a problem occured that I just found out.

All BV lots act as regular lots in regular hoods. Only the tour guide shows up and the pickpocket in appropiate clothing. The rest are just townies/downtownies/playable sims. No locals or tourists.

The locals show up in regular lots on regular hoods/downtown...

Once a new SimPE is made, I'll probably be able to do it properly. Must have been the FT stuff that borked it all.

[FlamingoKicker]

Gawd, it's time to jump thru these hoops again?   
I'm kind of glad Maxis is ending Sims 2 with Free Time.  I'm tempted just to leave the FT neighborhood separate but I did have a question about my Bluewater Village.
It's working fine with all my other neighborhoods so probably I should just leave well enough alone.  Alas....

I did not merge any new shopping districts when I merged my neighborhoods (I put Veronaville, Strangetown and Riverblossom Hills as alternate Downtowns and they worked fine).

My question is that I noticed my Bluewater Village is listed as Suburb03 and I have a Suburb01 and Suburb02 (neither of these have pictures with them).  Suburb03 is the one with the picture so that's how I know that's my active shopping district.
OK, why would my game list my active Bluewater Village as number 3?  Shouldn't it have been #1?
When I was thinking about merging the FT neighborhood as a second Shopping District I went and created an empty neighborhood there in the shopping districts and checked and saw the game called that one Suburb05 (?)  with its appropriate picture but it also threw in a Suburb04 (with no picture).

Why would it do that?  Can I delete Suburbs01, 02 and 04 and rename 03 to 01 and 05 to 02?

[HystericalParoxysm]

I'm having the same problem as koshechka - when I get to the step to attach the Strangetown-as-Downtown, I don't have the option to attach a downtown template at that point, just custom ones.  I have all EPs including Freetime and I was attempting to attach all the Maxis hoods as downtowns... haven't really done anything that deviates from the tutorial at that point besides adding two additional neighborhoods to begin with, and deleting Riverblossom Hills and Desiderata Valley too when you delete Veronaville and Strangetown (basically following the same steps for them).  I'm using the empty templates for those that they were available for...  I'm pretty darn sure I didn't do anything wrong as I read everything quite carefully and followed it as exactly as I possibly could... Any idea where I might have gone wrong, or shall I just start over?

[Tarlia]

Gawd, it's time to jump thru these hoops again?   
I'm kind of glad Maxis is ending Sims 2 with Free Time.  I'm tempted just to leave the FT neighborhood separate but I did have a question about my Bluewater Village.
It's working fine with all my other neighborhoods so probably I should just leave well enough alone.  Alas....

I did not merge any new shopping districts when I merged my neighborhoods (I put Veronaville, Strangetown and Riverblossom Hills as alternate Downtowns and they worked fine).

My question is that I noticed my Bluewater Village is listed as Suburb03 and I have a Suburb01 and Suburb02 (neither of these have pictures with them).  Suburb03 is the one with the picture so that's how I know that's my active shopping district.
OK, why would my game list my active Bluewater Village as number 3?  Shouldn't it have been #1?
When I was thinking about merging the FT neighborhood as a second Shopping District I went and created an empty neighborhood there in the shopping districts and checked and saw the game called that one Suburb05 (?)  with its appropriate picture but it also threw in a Suburb04 (with no picture).

Why would it do that?  Can I delete Suburbs01, 02 and 04 and rename 03 to 01 and 05 to 02?

I think the extra suburbs come from the Pets, Seasons and BV stealth neighbourhoods, even if you use clean templates for them.

[edalbformat]

Most of the tutorials sometimes are entertaining. Why the hell so much troubles and roundabout to save or merge Maxis characters?
All the hood templates contain mistaken characters that enter the game in much worse state than creating new ones in CAS.
Most of the dead Sims never had a life. They were also CAS placed in game and killed. I can also write all those memories in SimPe or just program so that they are included with simple objects.
For my personal use, I created totally new 3 original PleasantView, StrangeTown and Veronaville. All the characters I really wanted I remade self with the look that is really of my taste, instead of reconstructing flat noses Simrurgically.
Played all the characters up to reach the same state and saved the 3 hoods. So, if anything goes wrong I just use my own templates to start all over again. I have also additional hoods with all of the characters placed all together.
It is also possible to make models in BodyShop for all the characters you like. You may even export them from a hood copy and keep them for future use. So all you have to do is to create a downtown lot or OFB or whatever you feel like and just spread your models in it. I have even a BV hood with all my versions of Maxis characters as tourists.

[nerd]

Once again a new EP has given me another hood to attach. Thanks again Sara, Desiderata Valley is looking good as a new shopping district!

[HystericalParoxysm]

koshechka - Hrm, well, that didn't appear to be my problem, but thanks.

I'd started over from the beginning and when I got to that step I was able to add the Strangetown downtown successfully.  But that's when I got a little bit confused.  I tried to continue on but after doing what I thought were the right steps (which I'm pretty sure weren't), I got to the very end and had no Pleasantview anymore.

I may just be a bit dense here and it's possible it's been answered previously, I'm just blind, but... After you get Strangetown attached, I'm a little unclear on what exactly is being done there.  I guess I'm a little scatterbrained, but I find it a lot easier to do tutorial steps when it explains exactly why one does each step and exactly what you're doing, and I've tried to wrap my mind around it, but... I just don't get the purpose of certain things...

Part 4/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."

For that step, I have Downtown001 (default Downtown) and Downtown002 (Strangetown) in N001, as I had created the default downtown as directed in Part 1/Step 6 and it doesn't say to do anything with it between those steps.  Am I copying the default downtown to my Finished Work folder and then renaming it?  If so, why am I doing this now as opposed to when I created it, before making the 002-Strangetown downtown?  Or does Downtown002 (Strangetown) need to be moved somewhere first, so that I can rename the default downtown from 001 to 002 where it is (since there's already a 002 in my N001 folder)?

I guess if I knew exactly why I'm doing Part 4/Step 8 I wouldn't be quite so confused. 

[nerd]

When you attach the default Downtown, move it somewhere safe and then begin the whole making Strangetown into a downtown process. Then when you go into the game to attach Strangetown-downtown, there won't be a previous downtown (the default one) there, Strangetown-downtown will be the first downtown that gets attached. And when that's done and you exit the game, remove that one too (rename it first if you put it in the same folder as default Downtown so as to not overwrite) before you repeat with Veronaville. Or, if you don't mind starting with a brand spanking new Pleasantview, just download the one SaraMK has made. That's what I do, and then I've added all the other EAxis hoods as shopping districts.

[HystericalParoxysm]

nerd - Thanks much!  Not sure how I missed that as now that you say it, it makes perfect sense... Trying again for the third time, a little clearer on exactly what I'm doing... we'll see how this works. 

[FlamingoKicker]

I have successfully moved Strangetown, Veronaville and Riverblossom Hills to alternate Downtowns.
Now I just want to move Desiderata Valley to an alternate Downtown also but I'm stumped. I can't figure out which steps I can skip over and nothing is working that I've tried.  Help!

Can you give a simple step-by-step for adding one new section after you already have your Downtowns?  Thanks

[IAmTheRad]

Make Desiderata Valley a shopping district. It'll make it working easier. Personally, I have Strangetown and Veronaville (and downtown) as my downtowns. Bluewater, Riverblossom, and Desiderata are my shopping districts. It works out nicely.

[Krevetti]

Very awesome tutorial SaraMK!
I've been putting off trying this project for some time since my kids won't leave me too much chance to concentrate on projects like this but yesterday I finally got started and it went brilliantly. Great instrcutions. Sure I had a few minor problems to solve, especially when I started adding Desiderata Valley as a Shopping District but pretty soon that worked out too.
So now I have Riverblossom Hills as the base neighbourhood and all the others added to it and I'm very pleased with the end results. Thank you!

[HystericalParoxysm]

FINALLY, after like seven tries to do this... I've gotten Strangetown, Veronaville, Riverblossom Hills, and Desiderata Valley attached as shopping districts (gave up on downtowns).

The problem I was having was... well... weird... I was following the steps just fine but when I would get to the end I invariably had the one-on-top-of-the-other thing.

In making the backup of the D001 folder (or in my tries to do them as shopping districts, B001) I simply copied the folder so I had 'D001' and 'Copy of D001' as folders - so when it would go to generate the IDs it would have 'Copy of D001' in the Subname blank that shows up on the IDs in SimPE.  Why this was, I don't know, but as soon as I put the backup in a RAR file instead of leaving it in a renamed folder, it worked perfectly.

AND I did it (hopefully) fairly cleanly, with the AnyGameStarter, so the combined hood I just made should just require Open for Business, Seasons, and Freetime.  I'm going to do a bit more testing and then maybe look to sharing it so others don't have to go to the trouble.

[IAmTheRad]

FINALLY, after like seven tries to do this... I've gotten Strangetown, Veronaville, Riverblossom Hills, and Desiderata Valley attached as shopping districts (gave up on downtowns).

The problem I was having was... well... weird... I was following the steps just fine but when I would get to the end I invariably had the one-on-top-of-the-other thing.

In making the backup of the D001 folder (or in my tries to do them as shopping districts, B001) I simply copied the folder so I had 'D001' and 'Copy of D001' as folders - so when it would go to generate the IDs it would have 'Copy of D001' in the Subname blank that shows up on the IDs in SimPE.  Why this was, I don't know, but as soon as I put the backup in a RAR file instead of leaving it in a renamed folder, it worked perfectly.

AND I did it (hopefully) fairly cleanly, with the AnyGameStarter, so the combined hood I just made should just require Open for Business, Seasons, and Freetime.  I'm going to do a bit more testing and then maybe look to sharing it so others don't have to go to the trouble.

This would be very helpful for so many others. I suppose I should use the anygamestarter to do this myself.

[HystericalParoxysm]

http://www.demusedsims.com/uploads/N372.rar

Okay, there's the completed version, done as N372 so you can have your regular Pleasantview or whatever else you want and it shouldn't interfere.  Plop in Neighborhoods and begin playing.  As mentioned, all the other Maxis hoods are done as shopping districts of Pleasantview (with one Bluewater Village included as well) so don't add shopping districts, but feel free to add whatever else.

It is, however, 177 mb in size, rarred.

I'm currently uploading a multi-part rar for people on flaky connections, and I will be uploading it to MTS2 as well (with alternate links to Demused Sims for downloading as it tends to have a very nice fast download rate which MTS2, well, doesn't).

All Maxis playables and lots are included - most random townies are not.  I used the Maxis-only original hoods so you do have the Maxis simbin sims, but a minimum of random garbage townies.  Goopy Gilscarbo and Joe Carr don't seem to be included - yay!  669 characters total which seems about right for everyone and their dog's nephew's cousin from all the hoods.

I've tested a lot in each 'hood and everything seems to be fine but I make no guarantees.  Use at your own risk, your mileage may vary, remove nutmeats from shell before eating, do not insert into anus, etc.

[Emma]

  Goopy Gilscarbo and Joe Carr don't seem to be included - yay! 

Yay! Whoo! I might just download this.

do not insert into anus, etc.

Aww. But that is the best part of installing a new 'hood.

Seriously though, this is great, thanks. I've always wanted to do this and have never found the time.

[IAmTheRad]

Figured out what caused my 'non-vacation and non-locals appearing in vacation lots'

A hack.
Which one? Well, for those of you keeping tabs...
youngadultshoppers

One of Squinge's hacks.

Yep, my merged hood would actually work. My multi-merged one. With lots of garbage townies and data. It's 401MB rarred. That also includes ALL the subhoods, and even the evil stealth hoods.

So, if you have the same problem I did, it's Squinge's fault.
Now how did that non-awesome hack make it into my folder?