TUTORIAL: Merging the Maxis neighborhoods.

[Nova]

Yep, I totally get that they should be in that file, but for some reason they aren't.  Let's take out the whole merged hood thing here and I'll tell ya what I mean.  When I went to load my game, I let the game install all the maxis hoods fresh, no clean templates at all.  The Strangetown, Verona, Pleasant, Riverblossom, Desiderata bin families are all there.  Go to load my fresh Belladonna and the bin families are gone. Poof. Nowhere to be found.  Enter my confusion.

[Tarlia]

Yep, I totally get that they should be in that file, but for some reason they aren't.  Let's take out the whole merged hood thing here and I'll tell ya what I mean.  When I went to load my game, I let the game install all the maxis hoods fresh, no clean templates at all.  The Strangetown, Verona, Pleasant, Riverblossom, Desiderata bin families are all there.  Go to load my fresh Belladonna and the bin families are gone. Poof. Nowhere to be found.  Enter my confusion.

I'm a little confused... those three families you mentioned aren't belonging to Belladonna Cove, they're bin families that come with AL and will attach themselves to EVERY neighbourhood you load with AL installed, unless you use a clean template for it.

There aren't any of these in the basegame. The first "stealth hood" bin family came with Pets. They are as follows..
Pets: Cyd Roseland + dog, Critturs
Seasons: Ramaswami, Ottomas
Bon Voyage: Traveller
Free Time: Julien Cooke, Picaso
Apartment Life: Gavian, Goodie and Newson

For making a megahood, the trick is to load the main hood (usually Pleasantview) with the stealth hoods in place, so you get all the bin families there. Then, replace all stealth hoods with empty ones, and fix up your Belladonna Cove, delete the subhood files that are generated, and attach all the hoods to the main one as normal.

If you're entirely missing the E002 families, though, it sounds like the one you got ahold of is empty. Open it up in SimPE to confirm this.

[Nova]

My game hates me.  Yes, they are showing up in SimPE but when I load a fresh game, the three bin families still aren't there!  I pretty much gave up and downloaded them from SimEstates. 

As for the merged hood, I did it exactly as you described. The only goofy things I noticed upon completion were the mysterious poofing of the AL families, and the storyline that pops up when you first load Pleasantview has the pictures and captions for Desidarata.  I can live with that after all this craziness.

For your patience I give you a cookie and my gratitude.   

[Tarlia]

My game hates me.  Yes, they are showing up in SimPE but when I load a fresh game, the three bin families still aren't there!  I pretty much gave up and downloaded them from SimEstates. 

As for the merged hood, I did it exactly as you described. The only goofy things I noticed upon completion were the mysterious poofing of the AL families, and the storyline that pops up when you first load Pleasantview has the pictures and captions for Desidarata.  I can live with that after all this craziness.

For your patience I give you a cookie and my gratitude.   

That is odd. Huh. Maybe something's wrong with the stealth hood you got?

Either way, the storyline thing doesn't sound too bad, considering all that can go wrong with this game. :p

Also, no problem. Hope you enjoy your megahood. *munches cookie*

[Nicolae]

O...so now still can't merge Belladonna Cove into suburb?

And also, i cant make turtorial neighbourhood to become a suburb, i already add ID number and Catalog Description, name is not tutorial
but I cannot add it in game

[Tarlia]

O...so now still can't merge Belladonna Cove into suburb?

You can, but you have to move out all the families living in apartments first, then move them back in after merging (there's an option to move in with the furniture still there, either using testingcheatsenabled or Pescado's apartment hack).

[Nicolae]

I dont understand? Why we have to do this?
Because the furniture are still invisible after correct the data?
I try to make all data correct, but I cannot see their furniture, but sims can use it
and goto another apartment (for example family B), can see all of their furniture.
But when I use family B, their furniture invisible now!

[Tarlia]

I dont understand? Why we have to do this?
Because the furniture are still invisible after correct the data?
I try to make all data correct, but I cannot see their furniture, but sims can use it
and goto another apartment (for example family B), can see all of their furniture.
But when I use family B, their furniture invisible now!

Um, I don't really understand what you're talking about here.

In order to MERGE BC as a subhood, you have to move all the sims in apartments out to the sim bin before doing so. This is, as far as I understand, because both OFB and NL came before AL and the downtown/shopping district subhoods don't understand the apartment residencies. I mean, they will once you've installed the 'hood, but what you're doing is tricking the game into thinking a main neighbourhood is a subhood template, and at that point there wasn't supposed to be any apartments. So it screws it up somehow, and the families living in apartments will go missing and the apartments they lived in become unplayable, I think.

The stuff about furniture is just how to get the furniture back when you move them in again afterwards.

[Nicolae]

I already fix the problem of the missing families in apartment
they are playable, just their apartment furniture become invisible when I play it,
sims can use it, but you cant click it and see it

you can see the furniture of other family if you visit them
but when you play that family, the furniture also become invisible

so now i am trying to fix this problem
just this problem left now

[Tarlia]

I already fix the problem of the missing families in apartment
they are playable, just their apartment furniture become invisible when I play it,
sims can use it, but you cant click it and see it

you can see the furniture of other family if you visit them
but when you play that family, the furniture also become invisible

so now i am trying to fix this problem
just this problem left now

Ah. Sorry, no idea how to help you there. Try moving them out and back in - otherwise, I got nothing.

[Nicolae]

sigh...I cant not locate where can I edit

I only found the reason why these happened
Although i always edit the apartment lot and family info. to tell the game, this apartmentsublot is belong to that family
Yes...they are in the sublot when game start, but I found they havn't rent it yet!
If they rent the apartment after your enter the lot, all invisible furniture will be gone!
but if you order a sims go out from this lot to load a public lot and then return and rent it
the problem is sorted

but family money is reduced and all action are recorded
But I dont want to do everything on the raw save of the family...

[FlamingoKicker]

OK...this might be futile but I just bought a brand spankin' new computer with Windows 7 installed.  I want to transfer my Sims 2 setup (i.e., all my merged neighborhood) over but I've noticed Windows 7 has a different file structure than XP so I'm wondering if there's anything I need to alter or can I just move the files and folders I have on my old box directly over?

If you don't have Windows 7 I guess the main difference is there are no "Documents and Settings" folder and I have 3 "Program Files" folders on my machine although the Electronic Arts folders are only in one of these thankfully so that makes it alittle simpler.

See, I figured the best way to go was to clean install my base game and expansions first and then afterwards determine whether I could then just move the merged files and folders over and overwrite the files and folders set up on the new computer?

[J. M. Pescado]

You will have to reinstall the game itself, but you should be able to copy the save files to the analogous location. Where that is, I do not know.

[FlamingoKicker]

Yes, this is what I did and of course it isn't working.  It probably is a moot point to try and resurrect the game at this point what with Sims 3 out now but it would be nice.
Even though I've copied my saved files back over into my new system it doesn't seem tlo be "reading" the merged Neighborhoods file so I'm seeing the default neighborhoods screen (the box where you pick where you want to play like Pleasantview, Veronaville, Strangetown, etc.)

I see no Downtown district at all.  In my original setup I had Pleasantview as my main neighborhood and Strangetown, Veronaville, the default Downtown and the Seasons neighborhood as my Downtown districts.

Oddly when I open Pleasantview I see the original families again but if I open up any of the later neighborhoods like the one from FreeTime I see the families as I had most recently played them.

Oh, and I get some kind of error message from Windows 7 about the base game (about a compatibility error) so maybe that has something to do with why it isn't reading the files correctly?

thanks Microsoft.  :-P

[Mootilda]

This tutorial is now obsolete.

We have a much simpler method for creating megahoods by converting your neighborhoods to subhoods and then using the standard in-game method for attaching subhoods.

Tarlia has already done a lot of the work for you by cleaning, fixing, and converting all of the Maxis neighborhoods to subhoods.  You can download them here:
http://meetme2theriver.livejournal.com/63030.html

If you have custom neighborhoods which you want to convert to subhoods, here's the tutorial:
http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=502306

Once you have the subhoods installed, just run your game and attach the subhoods that you want.

[barbiepinklady]

Hi
i triesd to do this by myself but i failed to the step 4.
So i decide to stop here. I deleted everithi,g i'v done but now i've a problem.
Zarbville does't appear correctly. When i want to load it i've a error message, the games ended and i saw that create a Neighborhoods D001.
Anyone could help me to fixe this please?

[bobobrains]

This does not work with the free version released by EA a few years ago