At last, I've finished the project I've been working on for a while. New, even cleaner versions of the EAxis neighbourhoods, both as normal neighbourhoods and subhood templates! Now you can build your own uberhood exactly to your liking, no M&G Stuff Pack required!
Also, just to make it clear, the main 'hoods can also be used on their own, as cleaner, better versions of the originals. Just dump them in your Neighborhoods folder (after deleting the old one(s)) and play. :)
There's a lot of information here, so bear with me.
First of all, how are these different from the previous versions (aside from the subhood versions)? The two big things are that all the sims with broken face templates and similar oddities have been fixed, and that I've cleaned up all the marriage and love flags between a living sim and a dead sim. Now Brandi Broke and Timothy Riley and all the rest of them should be able to remarry in everyone's games. There's also a whole bunch of little details, like memories and relationships and such that I missed the first time, AND I've run Mootilda's excellent HoodChecker on them all (it's still in testing, which I've been helping with, so it's not available for download yet), getting rid of leftover stuff that I couldn't do in SimPE. Oh, and if you go to the graveyard lot in Belladonna Cove, you'll be in for a little surprise...
All the subhoods are shopping districts/suburbs. This means that OFB is required. I didn't think it made sense to make any of the small towns into a downtown. Belladonna Cove would be the exception to this, but like I said, that didn't work out...
Before we get to the 'hood downloads:
REQUIRED DOWNLOAD:
In order to have all the subhood templates available to you when you add a subhood ingame, you'll need THIS MOD by Mootilda. Only the shopping district one is necessary, but I recommend getting all of them.
RECOMMENDED DOWNLOADS:
Pescado's mods, particularly the ones that prevent spawning of massive amounts of townies, NPCs and strays.
Squinge's mod that prevents memory loss for townies and NPCs. If you install this before playing Pleasantview, Bella Goth won't lose her memories (nor will other townies or unplayable characters).
( NEIGHBOURHOOD DOWNLOADSCollapse )
...Whew. That's a lot of text. I've probably made a few typos and I'm sure at least one of the links was pasted incorrectly or something like that, but I'm too tired to proofread much right now. Let me know if there's any problems. And enjoy. :)
2011-06-25 06:42 pm (UTC)
Question, though... Can I only have one subhood placed in the OFB folder thingy at a time, or what?
I'm a little confused as how to set this up. [I've got all EPs and SPs.]
2011-06-25 06:46 pm (UTC)
2011-06-27 03:20 pm (UTC)
I have a couple questions, please!
Strangetown: Did you fix the character files of any of the dead sims in Olive's 'garden' or should I not attempt to resurrect them?
And NPCs/stealth hoods: Are any of the Eaxis-made hobby club leaders, social group townies, or Bon Voyage tourist townies included? I know they weren't with your previous uberhood so I'm assuming it's the same, cleaned templates. I've gone through all my character files and seen who is who, so I don't think there'd be a problem if I added them back after I download your hoods (hopefully!).
2011-06-27 03:49 pm (UTC)
About Olive's victims - I've fixed them as much as I was able to in SimPE, but I still wouldn't recommend resurrecting them. Several of them still have face corruptions, for one, and since I don't know what exactly about them causes 'hood borkage, I don't know if they're safe. If you want to resurrect them, you're better off creating replicas and - if you feel comfortable with it - replace relationships and family ties in SimPE and then use Pescado's method for safe deletion on the old ones.
Stealth hoods: There's no hobby club leaders, social group townies or tourists, no.
2011-07-03 03:04 am (UTC)
2011-07-03 06:32 am (UTC)
Issue or not?
2011-07-06 08:23 pm (UTC)
I'm very confident in the amount of cleaning you've done on these templates. Is this something I should be concerned about? I don't want to wipe out all the story-telling memories of the premades, but don't want to keep them if they're going to cause trouble. What do you advise?
Re: Issue or not?
2011-07-06 08:40 pm (UTC)
- Many premades have parents with incomplete character files. The lot debugger will wipe any memories about these sims.
- When merging a neighbourhood (as in adding a shopping district or whatever), there is a bug with how the memories of the new sims are handled. One of the memory values isn't updated correctly, so if it ends up pointing to a non-existent sim, the lot debugger will see it as corrupted and wipe it.
However, there's no evidence to suggest that either of these memory glitches will actually be harmful to the neighbourhood, so I'd just leave them alone if I were you - it's what I do, anyway. :)
2011-07-18 05:55 pm (UTC)
2011-07-18 06:11 pm (UTC)
2011-08-07 08:05 am (UTC)
I assume you're also missing the objects etc that came with these EPs, as in it doesn't recognise that you've installed them at all?
All I can suggest is to make very sure you haven't accidentally moved or renamed folders you shouldn't have.
2011-08-07 08:10 am (UTC)
But I have a question, if you have the time.
If I have Belladonna Cove as my main hood, with all other Maxis mainhoods as shopping districts, could I also install Strangetown as a mainhood and add the other hoods as shopping districts (including the shopping district Belladonna Cove) or would that bork my game?
Once again, thank so much!
2011-08-07 08:33 am (UTC)
No problem, I always have time for questions!
Without having tried it myself, I'm quite sure you can safely do what you're describing, as your main 'hoods will still be unique, and any subhood added will get a new ID. It's the same as how you can have a Bluewater Village in all of your neighbourhoods without issue. :)
2011-08-11 12:25 am (UTC)
2011-08-11 04:53 am (UTC)
2011-08-21 01:59 am (UTC)
I've enjoyed your hoods since you uploaded them; they are wonderful, and I enjoy my game more than I had previously. Thank you for you hard work, it is so appreciated.
2011-08-21 11:54 am (UTC)
2011-09-05 06:31 pm (UTC)
2011-09-06 06:44 am (UTC)
2011-09-08 09:12 am (UTC)
I've run into a weird problem though and I'm not sure what could be the solution. I used Pleasantview as my main hood and then added all the others as shopping districts. I had empty templates in my game before but I have replaced them with your stealth hoods and the problem is that the bin families from Riverblossom Hills, Belladona Cove and Desiderata Valley are not showing up in the family bin. I have everyone from Veronaville, Pleasantview and Bluewater Village so it's kind of weird. :|
2011-09-08 10:49 am (UTC)
Hm, you mean the stealth hood families from Seasons, FT and AL? (Ottomas, Picasos, Newsons, etc?) Those are not actually related to Riverblossom Hills, Desiderata Valley and Belladonna Cove, but are standalone, and should be added to your main 'hood the first time you load it if you've put in the stealth hood templates correctly.
Do you have the Pets and Bon Voyage stealth hood families, if you've got those EPs?
You should double check that you've put the stealth hoods in correctly. Make a new, empty neighbourhood to check, as these families will be added to every single 'hood you make.
2011-09-17 04:49 pm (UTC)
2011-09-18 07:53 am (UTC)
2011-09-20 02:13 pm (UTC)
2011-09-21 05:43 am (UTC)
2011-09-21 09:50 am (UTC)
I was thinking of just binning all the lots and plopping them down on a HoodReplace'd new terrain, then attaching the other hoods, but that would mean I'd lose the Tricou's and Rainelle. Is there any way I can make them into a downloadable family like you've done with the Kat and Kim families, or something? Or a way to convert Downtown from a template to a full blown Main Hood?
2011-09-21 12:32 pm (UTC)
It would definitely be easiest and most convenient to make a Main Hood out of Downtown, and it's definitely possible (although without having tried it I can't guarantee it won't cause any problems, but I don't think it will).
It's easy to do in SimPE, all you need to do is open up Downtown in SimPE, and change the neighbourhood type in the IDNO record from 3 to 1 (see here: http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.p
Let me know how it goes!
2011-09-24 10:20 am (UTC)
2011-09-25 08:02 am (UTC)
2011-10-17 07:13 am (UTC)
I also wanted to ask a question about Hal Capp's face. My Hal has just aged into an adult and his face has changed to the template 21 features - does this mean his face template is not fixed?
2011-10-17 11:59 am (UTC)
Hal Capp and the other sims with broken faces have not been fixed in the uberhood or the other, older templates, but they're fixed in the templates in this post. You can fix them yourself in your 'hood by downloading the templates with the fixed sims in, extracting the facial features from the fixed sims and replacing the facial structures of the sims in your 'hood. (There's instructions on how to do this somewhere in my journal, see the other posts about broken faces.)
Marriage bug
2011-11-07 07:12 am (UTC)
...which is the same problem in the megahood.
Anyway, I can't marry some sims. They just jump out of marrying, but one of them will still get a memory of being married, although they stay just engaged. With boolprop on I get the error "object referred to must be a person". So far most people have married fine but Bianca Monty/Edwin Sharpe and Angela Pleasant/Dustin Broke are where I'm getting the errors.
Any idea why this happens or how to fix it? :(
Re: Marriage bug
2011-11-07 08:13 am (UTC)
Hm, I've never encountered this problem before, nor have I been given any report of the problem in that thread, so I didn't know about it until now. Unfortunately I cannot say what is wrong or how you would fix it. The original uberhood, which the person in the boolprop thread is using, had an issue with widows and widowers still being flagged as married to their dead spouses, but that's been fixed in the clean templates in this post, and besides that, Bianca, Edwin, Angela and Dustin obviously have never been married before.
It could be many things, including buggy hacks (Do you have InTeen? It's a source of many an evil.), a broken neighbourhood, or, yes, it could be a problem with the templates, although I hope not.
My first suggestion would be to take out all your downloads, and check if it works then.
Second, I'd recommend trying in a different version of the neighbourhoods (just drop in Pleasantview, force age Angela and Dustin and try marrying them) and see if the problem persists. If it does, I'll look into it.
You should also run Mootilda's HoodChecker on your neighbourhood:
http://www.modthesims.info/d/456523
Don't worry if it gives you a lot of errors, just let it deal with those it can. The game code itself is buggy and can potentially screw up a number of things in your 'hood through normal gameplay.
2011-11-28 07:25 am (UTC)
Also I'm having some trouble with Veronaville. It does not show up as a selectable shopping district. I tried re-downloading but that didn't fix it. I made sure it was in the correct folder.
I was able to add Pleasantview, Strangetown, and Desiderata without any problems.
2011-11-28 08:05 am (UTC)
I don't know why Veronaville won't work for your. As far as I know, no one else's experienced problems with it in particular. You could try the fixed dead version and see if that works better for you?
2011-12-22 08:10 pm (UTC)
What I ultimately want is no BDC, but to start out with it as a sub-hood (so that I can collect the sims and lots from it and disperse them among the other 'hoods) with PV as a main, but don't have M&GS. Could I conceivably download BDC as a main with PV as a sub and use HoodReplace to make the BDC main look like PV and then transfer all the lots and sims over? Basically switch them around? This is probably a stupider question than I know it is, since I've never actually used HoodReplace and am not certain that's even what it does, but I can't imagine anything else would get me the (clean) Megahood I so desire. I have HP's (Uber) now, but I'm looking to start over and everyone's recommended yours. They seem nice; I only wish I weren't too technically retarded to appreciate them.
Heh, I should probably just get M&GS. Wish the stuff packs were more widely available.
2011-12-22 08:38 pm (UTC)
I haven't used HoodReplace before either, but as far as I understand, all it does is replace a neighbourhood terrain (including decorations, but not lots) with another. So you'd need to get rid of all the lots in BDC manually either before (probably better) or after replacing the terrain.
Then I guess you could do the same the other way around to get Belladonna Cove as a subhood.
But yeah, the easier option would be to just get M&G. It's worth it, I think, not only for the items but also for the awesome roof angle tool, and it's good to have the last version of the game executable.
2011-12-22 10:44 pm (UTC)
works on my machine and I've done everything right, as my computer is loading it up right now. :)
Aaaand... Um. Let's see, how do you regenerate a neighborhoods folder? *Is a noob at putting in neighborhoods.*
2011-12-23 03:31 pm (UTC)
Hm, I'm not quite sure what you tried or didn't try already, but to simply put clean Riverblossom Hills, as a main 'hood, into your game, you only need to take out/delete the old G001 folder in your Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighbourhoods folder, and then put in mine. You don't need to regenerate the whole folder for that, all your other 'hoods will be untouched.
Hope you'll get it working. Happy holidays. :)
Bon Voyage question
2012-01-05 04:58 am (UTC)
I'm still deciding how I want my megahood to be, but in the meantime I have a BV question. As you know, each vacation subhood creates a lot -- in my opinion -- of extra characters. But I'm not clear what the BV stealth hood includes. Does it have all the locals, tour guides, etc., or does the game just generate those needed, like the hotel guy, maids, etc?
Hope that makes sense.
Re: Bon Voyage question
2012-01-05 04:01 pm (UTC)
Here's some info about the Bon Voyage 'hoods:
The vacation destinations themselves - Takemizu Village, Three Lakes and Twikkii Island - add locals for their own destination (and some garbage data), but no other sims. Personally I use the clean templates found on MATY and use Argon's townie brick (also on MATY) to make my own locals.
The original BV stealth 'hood, V001, adds the Travellers, and also tourists and some NPCs (ninjas, charlatans, hotel dudes, etc). The NPCs you don't need, the game will generate them on its own when necessary. The tourists are buggy and have a lot of garbage data. You can make your own tourists too, if you want, but they're not strictly necessary for anything.
My clean BV stealth 'hood only has the (cleaned up) Traveller family, and nothing else.
Disappearing University?
2012-01-06 06:44 am (UTC)
This testing did reveal one problem. This testing did reveal one issue. When I went to the options to add a university to any hood, Sim State was not among the options. It was just LFT, ALT and "Add Remaining", as though the computer somehow thought SSU was already part of the hood (which it wasn't). Since my current Pleasantview does have SSU attached, I tried moving my Sims2 folder to a flash-drive, then starting the game, so the game would repopulate everything fresh. Same problem.
I double checked the Uni folder under MyFiles and confirmed that all three Uni templates were in the proper folder. They were.
Has anyone else reported a similar problem?
Re: Disappearing University?
2012-01-06 07:33 am (UTC)
I'm sorry you're having trouble. No one else has reported this particular problem, and SSU shows up fine in my game as well. I'm going to suggest that you delete the SSU template and try redownloading it, and see if that helps.
2012-01-18 08:37 pm (UTC)
Right now, the only neighbourhood I'm playing is Pleasantview, all of the other premades are untouched. So I can just delete those ones and replace them with your clean versions, easy as that?
I'm also not really sure I understand needing to regenerate the neighbourhoods folder for the new neighbourhoods to show up - what exactly does that mean?
And then a question about Belladona Cove: I don't have M&G installed, so my understanding is that I can only have it as a main hood when creating the megahood, right? I understand the note about gravestones (I just take out the other neighbourhoods from the folder before loading the game the first time, do as instructed, and then replace them, right?)
I think those are all of the questions I have right now - I hope I haven't asked anything too stupid or obvious! Thanks a lot!
2012-01-19 10:11 am (UTC)
First off, I'm assuming you've been able to install the subhood templates correctly so they show up as shopping districts in your game? And yes, you've understood the part about Belladonna Cove right - it has to be the main hood if you don't have M&G, and you have to take out the other neighbourhoods the first time you load the game with BDC in, to get the gravestones. (Then you can put them back, after.)
Second, just so you're aware, you don't NEED all the other pre-made hoods as main 'hoods at all if you don't intend to play them separately. So if you're going to only play the megahood, the only main 'hood you need in your Neighbourhoods folder is Belladonna Cove. Or if you're keeping Pleasantview, leave that in too. But all the others will just be more stuff your game has to unnecessarily load if you're not planning on using them. You can always put them back in at any time if you change your mind.
Thirdly, the two different installation instructions for the main 'hoods (either in the install location, or directly in your Documents\...\Neighbourhoods folder) do two slightly different things. If you put them in your Documents folder, then yes, it's as easy as you think - delete the old ones, put in the new ones. Done. If you ever want to start over, you just delete the old 'hood and put in a fresh copy again. You don't need to regenerate the Neighbourhoods folder when you do this.
If, however, you put the main 'hood templates in the install location, replacing the original templates, this means that you can at any time delete your Documents\...\Neighbourhoods folder, and the next time you load the game, the new Neighbourhoods folder will be regenerated with my clean templates already in. It's just a convenience thing, for people who would prefer to do it this way, but absolutely not required. Myself I prefer to just manually remove and add whatever neighbourhoods I want at any given moment, and never regenerate the folder itself. :)
Hope that clears things up. Feel free to ask if you're wondering about anything else. Good luck and have fun!
2012-01-31 04:37 am (UTC)
I use the inteenimator and a few flavour packs and when I click on Vidcund's biological clock, it shows the pregnancy meter option which is only available to teens. Is there any way to fix this? And why doesn't Vidcund change into something that will show his belly when he is supposed to be 'showing'? Also, after he gives birth, he starts talking like a teen. Is there some bad coding in his character file that is causing this? Because Pascal and Lazlo aren't affected by this weird glitch. I hope he isn't sort of a corruption canary or something...
2012-01-31 07:12 am (UTC)
Umm...
2012-01-31 07:32 pm (UTC)
Re: Umm...
2012-01-31 08:39 pm (UTC)