More Awesome Than You!

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?

As far as I know there are only 3 zoning options, commercial, dorm, and residential. For a new house (not a maxis pre-made greekhouse), I usually just name it, put the letters on and move the people in. I don't know if you still have to call and apply for charter, its been a while since I did my custom campus, but you do have to move them in first anyways, so you can take it from there.

There is a "greek" zoning option as well as "secret society" option with the zone changing cheat.

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?

Curious,

You do have to move a/any Sim into the house to call and apply for charter, then change the zoning to Greek when charter is granted.  The Sim who called can be moved out again, and the whole household of Frat boys just moved into their new quarters from the old house.

What I don't know, because I never bothered with it, is if the game allows for more than one Greek house at a time.  You may get some kind of message when you call for charter telling you this, depending on what the games detects, but it should also give you a clue as to what you need to do next.  It may be that the game will want you to move the students out and into the bin first, remove the original Greek house, and then try for charter again.
 

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?

Yes, it is ok to use residential lots, they just remain rental houses until you change the zoning to one of the other categories.  JM said not to mess with the tokens at all when you are editing their memories, I doubt that an extra token will cause a problem.  Just fill in the blanks, reorganize the memories to your satisfaction and delete the memories that are invisible and do not have one of the instance codes attached.

I agree with the way you did previously by moving them into the Student bin - I would have done this too.  I don't feel it is necessary to destroy the old house unless you just don't like it, otherwise just change the zoning to either dorm or residential for a rental property.

The only other thing that I myself would do differently, is to make all your changes and carry the whole project through in one game play session.  In other words, don't quit the game and leave the lot before you have everything just the way you want it.  When everything is in place and you are happy with the arrangements, save the game at this point.  Then I would make a back-up and save the file somewhere, such as your desktop, just in case something happens to you again.

Great, thanks to all ye who answered :).

Community it is, sorry, it was kind of late last night (for me anyway). I'm glad you got is sort of sorted though. I usually play with pristine neighborhoods, with all townies/dormies deleted at the outset. I tend to use the in-game tools to adjust college/secsoc membership/memories/friendships/interests/personality/etc. and then make them townies/dormies.

For rental property, I use mostly Reg's houses. The starter houses are nice, cheap, and very playable. One of her very usable houses comes occupied though, just use the cleaninstaller to get rid of them. Just plop them into your college neigborhood.

I also have the tendency to just build them a greek-house, letter it and go from there. I don't play them much; got burned early, and even with JM's fixes in place, I hesitate to play them. They, and the Secret Society, are mostly for cosmetic purposes. Aside from that, greek houses and SecSoc's are not native to our Universities at home, so I'm not really missing them.

As far as memory editing and their do's and don't's go, Brynne would be the one to ask. She's done extensive memory and other editing in one of her neighborhoods.

Other than that, just back up your game-folder before you start, and give it a good old college try :D

Thanks  ;D. 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  >:(....

Right, well, I for one don't encourage anyone to run out and buy Nightlife. At least until I get it. :P

I think every house can be a Greek House.  I have at least half a dozen apart from the original one.  It's the easiest way of satisfying the "Join Greek House" want!

Yup, that's pretty much my game plan. Once I've finished watching everyone else stress about all the bugs it will inevitably ship with, followed by much ooh-ing and aah-ing as JMP unleashes his Awesomeness on the game, then, and only then, will I be persuaded to part with my cash.

Thats my game plan too. :)

That's good to know - Thank your adding that in.

You're welcome.

CuriousSpurious, did you manage to relocate your greek houses?  I ask, because I've just gone back to play one of them (the frat bros = Alexander Goth) and the house is just such a totally messed up design and I'd like to put them in a simpler house designed by me!  Quicker than trying to redesign the existing one!

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.

Yes, I've got another Greek House which I built, has 4 double bedrooms, though only two are in use, a proper hall, kitchen/diner and sitting-room, and the sims who live in it seem to like it!  I intended when the first one moved back to Pleasantview to move some mor in, but at present I don't have any more suitable ones (the sims in that house are all gay males, and also involved with each other, so moving in one who isn't gay would perhaps cause problems, I don't know...).  Most of my other students are already in relationships and I don't want to move them, so I think this house will just continue with three in.

That would make for awesome Storytelling - the lone straight guy in a gay frat! Witness the scenes as he comes out ("whaddya mean, you're straight? we only let you join because you're cute!"), tries to bring his gf home for woohoo ("errr, girl cooties, girl cooties!"), and when he has gf trouble and tries to seek advice from his fellow fraternity people ("ditch her, & get involved with us - you know it makes sense").

Hell, if you don't want to use that story, I think I will :D.

Out of interest, IS it possible to have mixed-gender Greek houses? I haven't actually tried it either way, but I notice that "Ask to Pledge" comes up as an option for other YA sims with high enough relationship, regardless of gender. Would a member of the wrong sex get rejected at that point? Or could they join?

There's no discrimination, I've mixed ones and single sex ones.  Only one gay one, though!  It was started up by Keanu Broke, when he decided that living with Lilith wasn't going to allow him to have twenty simultaneous lovers, and I helped him by creating three very gorgous simguys to share his new house!  (He's graduated now, so there are only three of them left, so they obviously need me to go into CAS again!)