There's also another thread I found on changing DNA at the SimPE forum that you can reference. There are no screenshots though. Here's the link:

http://ambertation.de/simpeforum/viewtopic.php?t=1231&highlight=change+dna

If you meant you wanted to keep the photos you take, I thought you could just go into Buy mode and grab it out of the camera? Zoom in closer and you'll see a piece of paper sticking out of the side. I take photos of sims and put it on end-tables next to their beds, just to personalize the room a bit. The photos fetch a maximum amount of 100 simoleans whether you sell it in Live mode or Buy mode with creativity skill maxed.

As for painting portraits, I make use of the career reward camera to make sims pose for variety. For example, I select Mortimer to paint the portrait of Bella, when they got to the easel and the red rectangle frame comes up, which pauses the game, I hit 'P' or '0' on the keyboard to un-pause the game, select Bella as the active sim and cancel the 'Be painted' action from her queue - this doesn't cancel out the red rectangle frame or affect the painter's action queue, just so long as you don't accidentally press 'C' to take the snapshot or cancel the wrong sim's action queue. Are you guys following? So then I make Bella go to the spot I want her to pose at, click on the camera, choose from the variety of poses (sit on the ground, hands crossed, hands on hips, lay on the ground, monkey pose etc etc), and select one, then center the red rectangle frame on her and zoom to the size I want, wait for her to make the expression I want then hit Pause again so it doesn't change, then finally press 'C' to take the snapshot and Mortimer will start painting. Bella doesn't even have to stay in that pose, I cancel the pose from her queue and let her do something else. It works both ways with freewill on or off. Hope this makes sense to you guys .

Yup, happy to report I've played for 4 sim days on the fraternity lot, everything seems fine  . Pledged and moved in (by invitation only) additional members on the 3rd day, everything still going fine on the 4th. Working on the sorority lot next.

I so agree with you about the design. Such a big lot but no room built for double beds (!!) and so much wasted space. Might as well build our own instead of making over the existing one, quicker too and being able to package it for re-use is a plus.

Oops  . Ok, I remembered the first thing I tried to do when I got the EP was to resurrect the dead in the Goth house with the Resurrect-O-Nomitron, got the "didn't know any dead sims" response, then linked them in SimPE, tried again, sim still get same said  response, then went into SimPE and removed the dead tokens and added memories - *slaps forehead in retrospect*, should have left the dead tokens in (with the added memories) like you said  . I got impatient trying to get the Resurrect-O-Nomitron to work, then decided what the heck, I've successfully brought back dead sims using SimPE and TOL&D (everytime I had to replay either b'cos of game bugs pre-discovery of JMP hacks/bad cds+corrupted backup files etc) before I bought the EP, might as well just do it that way again  .

Huh, JMP didn't respond to my last max-number-of-8-sims-to-taxi post, guess he didn't come back here, or something. If he never does, how/where do I put in the request? Still alien to forums and such  , only started b'cos of the darned buggy TS2/TS2U.

Thanks  . Pristine neighbourhoods, me too, only I just play Pleasantview. Been trigger happy since I learned how to delete character files, no more forcing myself to try to play the immortal (hideous/boring personality) townies, no more having to see their faces in my sims' phone books+memories just because they tried to chat/dance/cut in to join my sims for a game of pinball/sat on the same bench to drink coffee/sat at the same table to eat the hotdogs meant for my sims etc etc at community lots. I mean, seriously, who exchanges phone numbers with every stranger they meet under the sun unless they are trying to sell something or they were at the same function hosted by a mutual friend or they were at a pub and had too much to drink blah blah blah you get the idea. Ugh. There should be player control for that.


Hmm. I'm apprehensive too, but I didn't buy the Uni EP just to not play it, big fiery ball visible from outer space or not, dammit! They (maxis) are evil, coming up with this great concept then falling short of delivering the goods, but I'm hooked. Not gonna be so quick to buy the Nightlife EP though. There's nothing more annoying than buying a piece of game that ran great for the first 6 months then finding it was fast becoming a piece of unplayable crap  ....

Great, thanks to all ye who answered .

What I did previously was move the Tri-Var Sorority and Urele-Oresha-Sham House into the student bin, bulldozed their pre-made greek houses, placed 2 new rental lots (it's ok to use residential lots from the base neighbourhood as rental lots, is it?) and renamed them as same. Then I moved them into their respective houses, clicked on the phone to see if there was an option to apply for charter, figuring the new house won't be a full-fledged greek house if there is, so I have the 2 houses re-apply for charter, then removed the extra memory of having joined a greek house in SimPE. Never got to test it any further to make sure there was no problem 'cos I messed up sim surgery in SimPE shortly after and couldn't restore my backed-up game folder (had gotton lazy and backing up only the neighbourhood folders, lesson well learnt - no short cuts from here on). So I was wondering if there is a correct way to do this, since they do already have a 'frat member' token prior to the moving. I intend to have only 2 greek houses with 6 members living in it at one time, the rest would have to wait their turn before joining and moving in. Any thoughts?

There are actually 5 lot zonings, what you mentioned (although I thought it's 'community', not 'commercial') plus LK's. Well, I mean, is there a correct way to do it  ? It'll be nice if I could move the frat boys and sorority sisters just like that *snaps fingers*, that'll be a much much much easier way. Instead of calling and re-applying for charter, which will mean they get a 'joined greek house memory' twice, and I don't know if it's ok to delete the extra one in SimPE, or should I be removing their 'frat member' tokens 1st then move them out before calling, or does it work just as well if I change the lot zoning to 'greek' etc etc  .

The maxis pre-made greek houses have no rooms for double beds, and I can't stand tearing down everything all over again and remodelling them, all over again, and they can't even be packaged for re-use since there are people living in it. Thought I'll just use the remodelled packaged residential maxoid monkey lot as rental properties, install twice and use them for the new greek houses.

So the game works fine your way, name the house, put the letters on and move people in? No BFBVFO?

I downloaded a lot made by maxoid monkey, remodelled it and intend to move the existing fraternity/sorority (Urele-Oresha-Sham and Tri-Var in Sim State University) into the new houses. How shall I go about it? Just move them in, change lot zoning to 'greek', or do I have to do it by phone i.e. re-apply for charter?

Dunno the answer to the first one, but here's something that might answer some if not all of the queries regarding question no.2. Check out Myths, Urban Legends, And Apocrypha Of TS2 Explored And Exploded in The War Room on this very website, it mentioned skilling.

Here's the link:
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?board=4.0

The Goths were brought back by SimPE and TOL&D. Can't figure out how to get around the grim reaper telling me my sims don't know any dead sims even after I linked them in SimPE with dead tokens removed and all. SimPE and TOL&D are still the trusted and workable way for me.


Maybe that'll explain why I get a special event clip whenever Darleen woohoos Darren and a PIP always pops up with special event camera turned off whenever they do the deed. And why Darleen doesn't get the option to go to community lots with the rest of the family.


With the exception of Skip, Michael and Darleen who "joined the family" by (re)marriage in-game, I had the Goths and Crumplebottoms find their own place after resurrection, then moved in by invitation only to the different families I had assigned them to. Edit: Also, I've moved all the ready-made families out into new lots, lots that I built myself, not one of those from the Lots & Houses Bin, so it can't be a lot problem.

I think I'm beginning to understand what JMP said about it being part of the phone hack, only 4 sims get to go. 7 sims (the Calientes mentioned at the top of this thread) getting into a taxi was before I replayed the game from beginning about a month ago without the phone hack in the Downloads folder. After I've got the phone hack in place, the 1st incident was with the Brokes. I had Skip call for transportation, only Agnes, Dustin, Beau and the youngest son, Christian, got asked when I checked 'multiple sims'. I thought I saw Christian started towards the taxi, he was trodding behind his older brothers at the time and he sort of jerked-stopped 'cos he was about to walk into one of them, and the 'Go To Community Lot' action dropped out of his queue and the taxi wasn't selectable again. I'd thought I was groggy and seeing things after a few hours of gameplay, then earlier today, I played the Pleasant family and I counted how many times I was asked for who would be going as well - it was 4.

I got a response back from EA Tech this evening, the official word is "The taxi should be able to accommodate at most 8 sims at the same time".

So, Mr El Presidente, if you are reading this, would it be possible to incorporate an additional dialog, or something to the same effect, for the original either-only-one-sim-or-the-whole-family-or-choose-not-to-go option with a cap at the maximum number of 8 sims into the phone hack? Please?

Yes, it used to be annoying that the option was to choose either only 1 sim or the whole family to go to a community lot, the phone hack helped loads when I only want 2 sims to go (public woohoo want on the rare occasion I don't ignore it).  In this case, I wanted the whole family to go and specially had the kids rest up for the trip, in the instance of the Broke family, where I had Agnes Crumplebottom moved in. Agnes, Dustin and the youngest son got asked, but not Skip nor Brandi nor Beau, and I wanted them to have a day out at the community swimming pool which I've remodeled. Firstly to check if the communal showers and lockers I placed work and secondly for the family to meet other members of other families they haven't met.

My memories about the game pre-Uni is pretty fuzzy now, but I remember the Pleasant family (Daniel+Mary-Sue, Angela+Dustin+one offspring, Lillith+Dirk+one offspring) could all get into the cab. I wanted new clothes for the kids, it was a get-in/get-out trip 'cos of the townies.

Post Uni, the Calientes, Michael, Nina+Komei and the two sets of twins (total of 7 sims) got into the cab when I selected the multiple sims option when prompted for "who needs a ride?". In other families with a moved-in Goth, the Goth, teenagers and children get to go but not the original owners of the house e.g. Skip+Brandi, or Darleen, or John/Jennifer. It was worse before the phone hack, where teenagers don't get an option to call for transportation on the phone, or they do but the taxi never shows up, and in any case, they also don't get to go no matter who did the calling, even after I moved the family out of the lot to eliminate the lot being the problem, and then it was either only the elders or one of the adults and a child who got into the cab. I've even had instances when only the children got into the cab, in the middle of the night which was the preferred time before I knew how to delete character files from the game folders. Good thing they could use the public phone to call for a taxi to go home.

When there are more than 4 sims getting into a vehicle, the sim already in the vehicle will sort of disappear from sight to make room for the 5th or 6th or 7th sim trying to get in, much like how 2 or more sims could get into the carpool in lower starting level careers/teen jobs, you know, the 2-doors beat-up car with the puttering exhaust.


Too populated? But there are only less than a handful of townies left after I got rid of the ones I didn't want in SimPE. 4 townie teens which I've sent off to college using the tools in the college town, and 3 surviving adult townies (Komei included).


Actually, I read on the BBS the taxi carries a max of 8 sims, 7 could go in my game, so there's some truth in that. Guess I may really have to ask EA Tech exactly how many sims could get into a taxi afterall. The reason behind this reluctance is their solution for everything seems to involve re-installing....

Edit: If the taxi accomodates 8 sims, maybe 7 sims from the Caliente family plus the taxi driver counts as 8. Still, the other families aren't as lucky. Anyway, I've posted the question to EA Tech. Hope it doesn't involve re-installing and smacking backup game folder back into the game like they've suggested before in another incident, which by the way, did not solve the problem....

"Taxi is not a limo", 

Well, I have to say this is about the 8th time I replayed Pleasantview from the beginning  , first few times were because of the jump bug and before I got on the official website (never bothered to with any other games), then there were other times with mishaps in SimPE, the latest being with plastic surgery where I accidentally deleted a donor sim (by then I had gotten lazy about backing up game folder and didn't think/know only saving the neighbourhood one makes a difference in the game being fully restorable) and the last time I played before all these lastest and shiniest hacks, up to 7 sims could get into a cab. So, does this mean the phone hack ony allows 4-5 sims to enter a cab?

Oh, I have the phone hack. It still only asks about 4-5 out of 6/7 sims in the family. I don't let my sims go to community lots when there are infants or toddlers in the family - hate the nannies. They only get to go when the children are well, children.

Heehee, toddler walking to the cab, as if he could climb into it in the first place.

Edit: I also have the carpool fix. I have all of JMP's hacks.

I resurrected all the dead sims that can be brought back in Pleasantview, spread the elder Goths around town and had them move in by invitation with different families 'cos I don't wanna have to kill off the townies I'm totally not interested in playing (I'd deleted their character files from SimPE and game folder, thus putting off the too many character files bug, well, hopefully anyway) so that my Knowledge sims can be frightened by their ghosts when these Goths die. I don't know if this is why it's happening, that not all the sims in the family get the option to get into the cab to go to a community lot when I have them call for Transportation.

Now, I prefer having about 6 sims to one family (3 generations), 7 at the most 'cos I'm obssessed about maxing out their skills so it's more convenient this way rather than exiting and loading different lots and spending time waiting for the lots to load. The only house not affected is the Caliente's, well, sort of, where I've got Michael Bachelor back from the grave. He's husband to Dina again, and I married Komei Tellerman to Nina (I'm obssessed about populating the neighbourhood with redheads too, and the man has a personality. Yes, I know I can change genes in SimPE, but Komei's ready-made and Nina needs a mate), and both couples had twins. I had the family call for a cab, all except Dina had the 'Go To Community Lot' option. I figure maybe that's because there's a cap to the number of sims that can get into one cab. In other families however, only about 4 or 5 get to go. I avoided going to community lots (especially in the daytime) before I found out how to get rid of character files as opposed to killing off (exceptionally) hideous townies (some people don't like Sophie Miguel, I do and kept her, she has spunk, like Lillith Pleasant) and still have their file lingering around, mainly because I prefer having a more controlled neighbourhood and I don't want my sims having a memory of every tom, dick and harry they meet on the street. Who does in real life anyway? So now that I've gotten rid of unwanted characters, I want my sims to be able to go to community lots as a family. Not that these places are so fantastic, but hey, I feel it's something they should do at least once in their short lifetime, and preferably as a family.

So, anyone has insight on why only some sims get into the cab while others don't get the option to?

P.S. BTW, why is it that everytime Darleen Dreamer woohoos with Darren, I get a special event clip (or whatever one calls it) when obviously, it's not their first time? They've even had a second child since then, so why won't the game register that? I've got the special event camera disabled and I still get a PIP (Picture in Picture) everytime they do the deed.

I don't have it anymore but I remember the Readme file mentioned something about adding sims to a family that way, that some lots might not load 'cos it doesn't always work and they "don't know why". So me being technically challenged, I can muck around the basics in SimPE no problem (well, no problem for the most part), follow tutorials for the more complicated stuffs if any are available and declared to work by those who tried it before me but beyond that, I'd rather leave what I dunno or don't understand alone, that's pretty much my motto - when in doubt, leave it alone. 'Cos I know nothing about programming stuffs and I wouldn't know how to fix something if they go wrong. Hence sticking to the TOL&D method.


I have the latest version of SimPE too. I'll try to get the step-by-step screen shots and post back.

Maybe the eyeshadow's just a Custom Makeup people create from the Bodyshop?

I was going to add these in after I realised I was so busy focusing on editing Skip that I forgot about Brandi and Dustin  . On Posie Flump's point no.6, you might also want to check that Dustin's memories of 'Learned To Walk' and 'Learned To Talk' are from the correct Skip, because in my version, they were memories of the Skip with NCD. That's also why I kept stressing to change the name of the NCD Skip so that you can tell them apart from each other when you choose the Subject's name in the Event Owner's memory so that you pick the correct one.

Hope you get the hang of it and succeed in bringing Skip back.

Yeah, did you check to make sure all 'I Am Dead' tokens have been deleted like Gali said? I don't think the tokens will return on their own once they've been deleted and the sim was resurrected though. At least they never did in my game.

I don't know if this might be relevant but I read through your posts again and noticed you removed the ghost flags off both Skip, but maybe that's the problem? When I went about bringing back Skip, Darleen and Michael, I left the versions with NCD (No Character Data) alone other than change their names. I have no clue if how changing those attributes would affect the ones with CD so I left them as it is. I didn't even delete them when I got rid of all the townies and YAs I know I won't play (yup, deleted them off in SimPE and from the game's Characters Folder so they won't appear in my game, ever) to trim the folder down to size and put off the too many characters bug and having to start all over from scratch again.

I know it's frustrating and tedious, but try going through those steps again to make sure you didn't miss anything? The method I provided above, I got it from the 'How To Resurrect Bella Goth' tutorial off the BBS. I was a completely clueless newbie unaware of things like SimPE and game hacks surfing the official website for solutions to my game bugs and I stumbled upon it. There was a craze about bringing her back then and there were people posting over and over asking and answering questions about the 'real' and 'fake' Bella so much so there was something of a 'Bella fatigue'. Well, I found this tutorial to work on my first try. You only have to do it once if you do it correctly, then backup your game files (not just the Neighbourhood folders) if you ever need to play from scratch for whatever reason.

Here's my two cents' worth:

I used SimPE and TOL&D (Tombstone of L & D) to resurrect dead sims. Only those with Character Data can be resurrected, you can tell who those are in the Sim Browser - those without the little pink square on the top left hand corner. The downside is I had to manually add back the missing memories.

Because there are 2 versions of Skip Broke, also Michael Bachelor & Darleen Dreamer if you want them back too, I renamed the versions without Character Data in SimPE first to avoid confusion when using the TOL&D to add them back to the family.

1. Open SimPE, click on Plugins, select Neighbourhood Browser, click on Pleasantview, click Open.
2. Click on Plugins, select Sim Broswer, click on Skip Broke's thumbnail, click Open.
3. Click on the Extended tab, under Misc, change the Unlinked value from 0x0001 to 0x0000, click Commit.
4. Click on the Character tab, under Ghost, uncheck 'Is Ghost', click Commit.

Adjust his Character/Genetic Character, Interests and Skills however you like, remember to click Commit as you go along.
Adjust his relations with the surviving Brokes however you like. Personally, I set his relation with Brandi as 'Spouses', checked the 'Best Friends', 'Crush' and 'Love' but left the 'Married' square unchecked, 'cos I read that the only way for them to have a ring on their finger is to have them marry each other in-game again, and that seemed to be true. Plus, that way, the family portrait of the Broke's when you click on the lot will then show the couple looking married/joined instead of standing separately, if you know what I mean.

5. Open Neighbourhood Memory, scroll to Skip Broke's thumbnail (he's right after Darleen Dreamer, with Michael Bacherlor before her, note the lack of a little pink square at the top left hand corner in the thumbnails, these are the versions that has Character Data) and click on it. Click on the 'I Am Dead' token, click Delete, click Commit. Repeat deletion if there is more than one 'I Am Dead' token.

To add back memories, click on Add, Under Event Owner, click on the underlined 'Me' in blue, that'll give you Skip's name. Under Guid, choose the event type,for example, Potty Trained by, then Under Subject, choose the name of the sim who Potty Trained Skip, these Subject's names will show up as tumbnails in-game in Skip's memory. I chose Flat Broke, Skip's late father. Refer to Brandi Broke's, or other sim's memories if you aren't sure what to add. Remember to click commit at the end when you are finished with adding in all relevant memories. Save and exit SimPE.

6. Start the game, enter the Broke family lot, pause the game, open up the cheat window, type in 'boolprop testingCheatsEnabled true', close cheat window. Now shift-click on the active sim, select Spawn, select Tombstone of L & D, a tombstone will appear near the active sim. Open up the cheat window again to turn off the testingcheats i.e. type 'boolprop testingCheatsEnabled false' (I have to say I'm pretty technically challenged and I dunno what negative effects leaving testingcheats on will have on my game so I always turn if off when I'm done with whatever I needed the testingcheats for). Click on the TOL&D, select 'Add Neighbour To Family...', click on 'More...' until you see Skip's name, then click on the name and Skip will appear on the lot, resurrected.

This method of resurrecting the dead worked for me for all the Goths, Michael Bachelor and Darleen Dreamer, hope it works for you too.