I also still have the bed/inventory problem. It's happened with Maxis and CC beds and there doesn't seem to be any pattern to it at all. It doesn't happen every single time I put a bed in inventory, just often enough I rarely bother anymore. And I've taken a bed out of inventory, sim slept in it the first night, but the second night it was borked and had to be replaced.

I haven't seen what happens with the maid and inventoried beds. I generally make my sims suffer without servants. I can check and see if I get the same thing, though.

I have no clue what to do about it, but I just thought I'd let you know inventory is still breaking beds in somebody else's game, too.

Ah, that would explain it for this family. New neighborhood, playables and my custom townies are pretty balanced at the moment--but nearly all the NPCs are currently female. I like the effect, though; makes it seem more realistic.

I know it used to be there between adult/teen offspring and may still be--haven't looked for it lately. I don't think I've ever seen it available between adult/child, though. Of course, if it was ever there for the shorties, I could have missed it.

Since this a baby talk thread...

I randomize after starting the game and all that. I get enough personality variety that it doesn't get boring.

I'm curious though about just how random gender is--totally random or is it weighted in some way? I've got a same sex male couple right now. I let ACR  have its way with them (or let them have their way with ACR) for awhile because it's a new mostly empty neighborhood and they had five kids in short order.  All five of them are boys, all single births.

It doesn't bother me at all. I kind of like having all boys in this family, they look like something out of Pink Floyd, all headed out the door in their private school uniforms.

I've had similar families before, with long runs of same sex children. It doesn't bother me at all, I've never exited without saving to get the other gender. It just makes me curious when they have a bunch and they all turn out same gender, because that can happen in real life. Some guys shoot more sperm for one gender than the other. My folks had seven girls and two boys (Catholic and before birth control so, Yeah, really.)

But I suppose that would be too realistic and awesome for Maxis to pull off.

edit: to clarify what I was a trying to say or something

This is new to me, I've never had this one pop up before.

The lot was paused the last time it was saved. There are two sims currently in the household. 4-of-8 Kelly was sleeping. Terry Kelly was playing chess. I entered the lot, checked the sims (still paused) to see where their needs were and then unpaused the game. The error popped up immediately. Reset didn't 'fix it'. The same error kept repeating. I finally clicked delete in the error message box, which 'fixed it'. Then I used the lot debugger to nuke dream trackers.

Here's the first error log. I've got a half dozen more for the same error.  I don't think it's a big important error, but it'd be handy to know if there's something I need to do/fix/remove from lot to avoid this error happening again. Thanks.

[attachment deleted by admin]

That's why it's been bugging me in my custom hood, Rohina. I could understand if the neighborhood were crowded but it's only got eight houses so far.

I disabled 'neighborhood drift', that seemed to help quite a bit.

For anybody who ever searches this, "boolprop displayNeighborhoodRoads (True/False)" removes the roads, but not the traffic.  The cars kept running on the same routes, even without asphalt.

I've got the empty template for G002. Do I need to replace it with the original before I attempt to patch? I read through this thread, but I'm still chicken not sure.

Okay, dug up the cheat codes again and found "boolprop displayNeighborhoodRoads (True/False)".   I'll check later, see if no roads/no traffic fixes the lag. I hope that's all it is.

This isn't a big deal, but it's kind of a nuisance. The game is slow on the neighborhood screen. Noticeably slow for my computer. Clicking on the control panel means a wait of up to two or three minutes for the panel I've clicked for to open. On this computer, that seems slow.

What causes this? In my custom hood, the only decorations are two rows of trees (the ones that are placed as a full row, not individual trees placed in a line), two redbud trees and one 'surf' thingy. (Strangetown has more than that, but I didn't put 'em there.) The custom hood only has eight houses so far, and four (small) community lots. I only use the Maxis neighborhood terrains or maps or whatever they are called. I never download neighborhoods, neighborhood decorations or lots.

No subhoods at all, not on any hood. I never used them much, so I stopped adding them.

The only 'extra' pointless visual thing on the neighborhood screen that I can think of that might be contributing to the lag is the traffic. If it's the traffic, can I get rid of it?
Thanks!

edit: fixin' subject line

This happens to me constantly; one sim cooking a group meal, and it seems regardless of the cooking stage, another one will try to start cooking something else. (I try to knock it off their queue whenever it happens, but sometimes I'm a little slow on the mouse.) I rarely see "wait for food" anymore.  I don't think I've seen it since before installing Seasons.

I make most of my sims four or five bars on neat and it's rare to see them Stuff Face.

Zazazu has braveness.

Yes, I get to listen to the invisible werewolves howling in the night. Kind of neat, actually; the gothic atmosphere without the hairballs.

My vote: Weird bugs crop up when sims die on vacation. Another sim attempting to take the grave home in inventory will result in FUBARing of family trees, new inventory bugs, resurrection of old inventory bugs, portraits of Goopy Gilscarbo turning up in everybody's inventory and finally neighborhood implosion.  EA Games feigns ignorance, releases patch, recalls patch, re-releases patch and finally, prematurely releases Sims 3 to distract us all. Sims 3 is so bug-ridden it's unplayable.

Also, if you play the factory-canned families that are foisted off on users of the new expansion pack and one of them dies on vacation, your computer will melt.

Meanwhile, Pescado released his fix two days after the EP was released and it worked.

Also, clothes from previous EPs and stuff packs are overwritten by vacation stuff, which will be uniformly ugly.
New aspiration, if any, is as pointless as "Pleasure" asp.
One or more of the new wants will not be judged fulfilled and roll off properly after sims have performed it.
New LifeTimeWants won't fulfill properly.
Children who do silly things autonomously on vacation will be taken by Social Worker.
Social Worker gets stuck on vacation lots with taken children who have dropped out of the queue. Children and SW starve to death.
EP will feature new 'special creature', like the vampires, werewolves, etc.  The new special creature will have its own list of bugs and fail, some of them repeated from previous special creatures.

The best I've got is probably Cassaboom.  Maybe Prickett.  I also like Utter, for some reason.

The best surname I've ever seen, though I haven't used it in game, is Maestroguiseppe. I saw that in the phone book years ago.

Yes, I did.

And I clearly remember working with G002.

This evening, I experimented. (I backed up again and then--) I deleted N001 and N001-bak from Documents. Started the game. Strangetown was #1, Skygusty custom hood #2.  I created another custom hood; it worked fine, no crash. But the newest custom hood is now # 1, Strangetown is 2 and Skygusty is 3. And N001-bak didn't return to the Documents...\Neighborhoods folder, whew.

The crash may have just been a one-off, or caused by the presence of N001-bak (Pleasantview).
And perhaps with Seasons, the game is simply determined to have an N001-hood that isn't from the base game (i.e., Strangetown)...?

N001-bak is the only one that got left in place (since Jordi's tutorial didn't direct otherwise and I didn't expect the game to be quite that stupid. Sheesh.)

No -baks anywhere else. I didn't .bak the templates; I zipped the default template files, moved the zipped files somewhere safe and installed the empty templates.

Here's what I've got in Program files...\Seasons:
Res\Neighborhood Template\G002 contains the empty template from MATY.
UserData\Neighborhoods\G001 contains the default files for the Seasons hood.

When I started the game, I let it generate Seasons hood, Strangetown and Veronaville. Deleted Seasons hood and Veronaville from the Main Menu.
Played Strangetown for a couple days to get everybody's lives going.
Tried to make a custom hood--Got weird Weather hood, placed first in Main Menu.
Tried to make custom hood again with Weather hood in place. Got MY custom hood, placed third.

Something is going on with Seasons and G001 but I'm way too newb to guess.
I'm getting frustrated with my own ignorance, but I'm still determined to fix this. If MATY's patience doesn't run out. I'm really grateful for all the help, thank you.

How I ended up with N001-bak in Documents...\Neighborhoods, I'm not sure. There was no Documents...\Neighborhoods folder when the game was started with the cleaned up/empty templates. I backed up, installed empty and cleaned up templates in the proper places (with the tutorials open for reference) and then moved the Documents...\Neighborhoods folder bodily to the desktop.
After starting game, that Seasons hood (which I still can't remember the name of), Strangtown and Veronaville were regenerated and showed up in the Main Menu.
I deleted Seasons hood and Veronaville from Main Menu.

The only place N001-bak, with a Pleasantview .png, could have come from is Program Files.
The N001 folder in Program Files was renamed to N001-bak according to the instructions in Jordi's tutorial; the only instruction in that tutorial was to rename Program Files...\N001.

I suspect this might be a result of having Program Files...\N001-bak with no other Pleasantview template while the game is regenerating the whole Documents...\Neighborhoods folder.

But I'll delete the N001 hoods in Documents.
The only crash I've had was making a custom hood, and that seems to be something to do with Seasons.

I followed all advice and got Strangetown set up nicely, with custom townies added and it's great, thanks.  I played Strangetown for a few days, fiddling with the natives and adding a couple of my sims.

Last night, I got ready to start my custom hood. Picked a (default) template and gave it the name 'Skygusty'. The game did its "Creating Skygusty" thing. When it got to the part where it generates weather (or whatever it says), the game crashed.

When I restarted it, I had two hoods showing in game.  The first one is named "Weather". It has that green grid picture and the description is something like 'New Seasons Neighborhood' or similar. There is no option to delete it in game; the little trash can ain't there. Strangetown is now the second hood.

Since I had made backups, I tried again to create a new custom hood without deleting the "Weather" hood.  This time it worked fine, and my new custom hood is working, is placed as the third nieghborhood, has some custom townies and one sim moved in.

In C:\My Documents\...The Sims 2\Nieghborhoods, I have-- N001, N001-bak, N002, N003 and Tutorial folders, and the NeighborhoodManager.package.

C:\Documents\...\N001 contains-- Characters, Lots, Storytelling and Thumbnails folders, and N001_Neighborhood.package, N001_Neighborhood.png and N001_Suburb001.package. 
The Characters, Lots and Storytelling folders are empty.
The Thumbnails folder contains N001_FamilyThumbnails.package.
The N001_Neighborhood.png is a pic of the default template I chose for my custom hood.

C:\Documents\...\N001-bak contains: Characters and Lots folders, N001_Neighborhood.package, N001_Neighborhood.png and N001_Neighborhood.reia. The Characters and Lots folders are full of files.  The .png is the Pleasantview picture.

N002 is my new Strangetown. N003 is my custom hood, created last night.

What did I miss or do wrong?
Can I delete the useless N001 and/or N001-bak from C:\My Documents...\Neighborhoods with no weirdness afterward?
If I delete N001 (the "Weather" one), will the game just do the same thing when I create another custom hood?
Should I have moved N001-bak from C:\Program Files, instead of just renaming it? I followed Jordi's tutorial and it says only to rename N001 in Program Files.  I did not download a clean template for Pleasantview, since I don't want Pleasantview in my game.

(I zipped the default templates for OFB, NightLife and Seasons and moved them to a safe place.  Then replaced them with the empty templates according to instructions. I haven't tried adding any subhoods at all yet.)

...I think I've read that if you make them unselectable with inSIM, they'll wander off the lot when they start to get miserable...

That car is frightening. And not in a good way.

If you want your 'primitive plumbing' to be more realistic, make it a rule that the outhouse has to be moved every so many days.  My mother grew up on a farm with no running water; the outhouse got moved to a new pit at least once a year.


For the purposes of the challenge, you could imagine them as "bee hives".  If you want to be seriously realistic, you could try to get some creator to make you a Ladybug Loft that looks like a beehive. Again, my grandfather was a subsistence farmer--and he kept honeybees.

saraMK--I'll move it to the desktop till I'm sure it can be deleted.

Kyna--Oh, good. I was hoping there was something I could do. SS isn't a problem as I don't have Uni, so that's cool. Small parties aren't an obstacle; I'd just like my community lots to function at something faster than the speed of molasses.

Thanks, Bippy (sorry, couldn't resist.)  I've never heard of the two things you mention. I've always just endured the ugly sims. Of course now I'll get curious and look into them. After I'm done hacking 'hoods.


...I've got a dog around here somewhere...

Okay. I was wondering about that. I knew it would renumber when a hood was deleted from the main menu. Wasn't sure about deleting a hood from windows.

So instead, it'll be something like this.
--In SimPE, export Chosen sims.
--Back up Documents...\Sims 2\Neighborhoods in case of accidents.
--Install antiredundancy and notownie regen.
--Rename C:\My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighborhoods. (Delete when I'm sure everything's cool.)
--Install cleaned up Strangetown in Program Files.
--Install empty OFB and Seasons templates in Program Files.
--Start game and let it generate EAxis hoods.
--Delete Pleasantview, Veronaville and [that Seasons hood] from main menu.

Continue from there with making Strangetown townies and new custom hood...
Yeah, I figure it's just more straightforward to install your Strangetown in Program Files.

Thanks so much, and for the instructions. I think I will create custom townies for Strangetown. I will give me something to do while I'm planning how I want to lay out the new custom hood. 

I'm working up my list of how I should do this. It looks something like this:
--In SimPE, export Chosen sims.
--Back up Documents...\Sims 2\Neighborhoods in case of accidents.
--Install antiredundancy and notownie regen.
--Delete C:\My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighborhoods\N002.
--Install cleaned up Strangetown saraMK kindly provided (thank you muchly.)
--Install empty OFB and Seasons templates to prevent weird families in family bins.
--Start game and let it generate clean Strangetown (it'll do this when it finds Documents...\N002, instead of renumbering subsequent hoods?)
--Delete doomed neighborhoods from main menu in game.
--Create Strangetown townies while trying to think of fantastic name for a new custom hood.
--Create new custom hood and townies.
--If I've done every thing right, say "Ta-da!"
--If I didn't do everything right, have migraine and shot of vodka. Start over.

I've got the clean custom neighborhoods/townies tutorial printed out to be followed. Have I missed anything obvious?
(And thanks for all the help, even if it is out of style around here.)

Oh, could you? That would be very amazingly awesome of you. *kowtows*  The bundled set is such a big download, with the two neighborhoods I wouldn't use.

I presume the instructions for install will be the same as in the thread...? Or do I presume wrong? (I hate doing something stupid because I forgot to ask an easy question.)

Edit to add: I've downloaded notownieregen. Now, I don't care if Strangetown has Maxis townies. Should I install notownieregen before or after installing/creating the new Strangetown?

I am very wary of doing anything in C:\Program Files\EA Games\Sims 2...

Not to mention that saraMK's cleaned up Strangetown seems to only be available bundled with Pleasantview and Veronaville (special barf for Veronaville; does anybody actually play it?)  That makes it 26 MBs. I'm on dial up, it'd take forever to download that.

What about Dea's DNA fixes instead? http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,7086.0.html
And if I download Dea's Strangetown, do I have to put it in Program Files\EA? Or only in Documents\EA?

And thanks for reminding me I can let the game regenerate the native hoods. Got so busy thinking about my precious sims I want to rescue I forgot about that. 

Zazazu, I used to use conglomerate community lots, but after OFB they got laggy. After Seasons, they got impossible; it was just painful to watch a sim take a half-a-real-world-hour to get to the terlet. Is there anything in Visitor Controller to limit the number of sims allowed on a community lot? I went and looked but if that is a feature, he didn't mention in the post.