JM, I don't get what's gross about it. You change everything else about the game to make it more to your liking, so what's gross about changing the sex so to have more fun with the game? I don't believe you don't know anything about that. Everybody knows you know everything.

Thanks, SaraMK. I'll check out the links.

It looks like my new neighborhood is going to be girls only, based on the run of girl babies that have been born since I started playing the neighborhood. I know I can create male Sims for them to marry, but part of the fun I get out of the game is seeing what Sims result from the coupling of born-in-game Sims. I tried changing the sex of one of the girls, but after changing it, realized there's probably a bunch of stuff that still thinks she's a girl, so I changed her back. If it's possible to do it, would I have to through a mass of code to make the change successfully?

Thank you. That's a relief.

I'm hoping someone can tell me what this is all about: when I opened the cheat window, which I never use, about 100 error messages appeared, like these:

.\source\GZSceneGraphMaterialManager.cpp(997)
WARNING MaterialManager: Unknown material definition 'treejapanesemaple_layeredjapanesemaplelod90_branch_sub[layeredjapanesemaplelod90]', handle 611 -- substituting dummy material definition
.\source\GZSceneGraphMaterialManager.cpp(997)
WARNING MaterialManager: Unknown material definition 'parkbenchlod90', handle 473 -- substituting dummy material definition
.\source\GZSceneGraphMaterialManager.cpp(997)
WARNING MaterialManager: Unknown material definition 'canlod90', handle 460 -- substituting dummy material definition
.\source\GZSceneGraphMaterialManager.cpp(997)
WARNING MaterialManager: Unknown material definition 'lightingstreetlightlod90_pole_material_sub[lightingstreetlightlod90_pole_material]', handle 283 -- substituting dummy material definition
.\source\GZSceneGraphMaterialManager.cpp(997)
WARNING MaterialManager: Unknown material definition 'lightingstreetlightlod90_streetlight_material_sub[lightingstreetlightlod90_streetlight_material]', handle 859 -- substituting dummy material definition
.\source\GZSceneGraphMaterialManager.cpp(997)

That's just a sample; there was a lot more. I have Sim PE installed -- could that be where this is coming from? I was having a serious problem  after a few weeks of no problems at all, and I removed a bunch of hacks that I had downloaded. I thought I might have turned aging off when I did that (I had downloaded a hack to keep elders from living so long), because the baby in one of my families was taking forever to become a toddler, so I wanted to turn aging on through cheats. I saw all those errors, and decided that I should uninstall Sims 2 because someone had told me that one of the problems I was having was a sign of a "catastrophic" error.

I uninstalled everything (with problems along the way) then restored my saved neighborhood. The family lot wouldn't open, so I figured I had to start all over again from scratch, and went through the uninstallation and reinstallation again. I thought everything was fresh and new, and then I opened the cheats window and see all these error messages.

Can someone tell me if this is some critical problem? What do I do to get the game the way it would be fresh out of the box? Why wouldn't the errors be uninstalled when I uninstalled the game? I hope someone can give me a clue about what's going on. I don't want to start a neighborood for the third time if I already have serious problems with the game. Thank you.

When I first saw this post, I was surprised at the simplicity of the request. It sounded like the kind of thing you see on BBS. What's really puzzling to me is, how come a smart person like you, who wants hacks to make the game harder, can't think of names for streets? There's an entire world of names out there. Everything in the world has a name, and each name can be used for something else. It's just really puzzling that a brainy person like you couldn't figure this out for herself.

Elfpuddle, as I mentioned above, I know about the cheats, but there are more reasons for doing what I'm dong than increasing funds. The funds are part of it, but not all of it. That's why I asked the question about changing the names of the residences.

Not reallly. I was trying to avoid going into the boring details, but basically, here's the situation:

1. I create a household and move in a Sim with the name Farrell.
2. I move in another Sim so §20,000 will be added to their funds.
3. The situation changes, and I want to move Farrell over to Sinclair's house because I want Farrell to be with Sinclair's housemate and I want them to have a lot of simoleans (one household of two very low-earning Sims ended up with §98,000 to start when I did this, so I'm really wedded to this way of moving Sims from furnished households and increasing their funds)
4. Farrell & Sinclair have a baby and there's another house occupied by Boland which I want for them, furnished, so I move them there (separately).

So now Mr & Mrs Farrell are in Boland's house. I want to know how to change the Boland to Farrell. I know that there is a standard way  to move Sims, but I like this way better because they have more money and move into furnished houses. I also know about inventories, but it's the money part that makes this method so appealing to me.

Ness, I didn't really understand your reply. Also, as I mentioned in my original post, there are complicated circumstances surrounding the moves that involve moving them to existing lots, so starting with a new lot that will keep the name of the Sim that first moved in is not an option, based on the way I'm doing things (maybe that 's not what you said). Thanks, though.

Well, I've learned a lot more than I expected to tonight.

Yes, gjam, I did mean 'b'. Sorry I wasn't clear about that.  Thanks for the help. I"ll try what you suggested.

I just mean the names of the houses, not the Sims themselves. I thought maybe there was a way to go into a file somewhere and change the name.

I have found a way to incease the family funds of my Sims households by moving them one by one into already-occupied houses (I know there's a cheat to increase funds but my reasons for doing it this way are complicated and involve more than money). In the course of all this moving, the names of the Sims living in the houses are different than the name that shows up when you point the cursor on the house. Is there a way to change the name of the hoursehold? I have downloaded Sim PE but haven't done anything with it, so I can use that if I can figure it out. Otherwise, is there a way in the game or using a hack that will let me change the name?

Thanks, Regina. Actually, I can put up with most of the annoying stuff if I know why it's happening. What I especially don't like is when they start yelling at me if something is in the way, but even that is not worth trying to remove. I just yell back at them and move whatever is in the way.

I just thought these two things, the persistent bad luck and the crazy angry person, were deliberately put in there and wanted to know if I was right about that. Now I understand the reason for a Sim coming into the house all angry, so it's okay. I did have a Sim looking through the telescope during daylight yesterday, and all he saw were flower beds, bushes and trees. I'm waiting to see if he gets any angry visitors. I would think that looking at plants and flowers is harmless enough, but maybe the Sim whose property they're on will see it differently.

I hope my poor unlucky Sim can ride his clump of negative randomness and get to the good stuff.

Thank you, Karen, that's very helpful. I guess I can tolerate the unpleasant behavior, now that I know the reason for it. It's also very helpful to know that they can fulfill their logic requirement during the day, but then of course I'm inviting the wrath of Mortimer. Have to decide whether it's worth it.

Thanks! I did have several of them looking through the telescope during the day in the first game. I haven't done that in the second game, and now that you say that, I realize that I don't have anyone bursting in to anyone's house, either. I stopped having them use the telescope during the day because I wasn't sure if they got logic points if it wasn't literally "stargazing."


How did you find out what was making Mortimer mad? I would never have put those two things together.

I've been playing TS2 for about 2 months and NL for about 2 weeks. For most of that time I was playing my first neighborhood, with about 6 CAS Sims and their progeny. Then I uninstalled the game and deleted everything so I could start over, and for the past week have been playing 8 new Sims who so far have not reproduced, so it's just them, the Maxis-created playable Sims and the townies.

Here's my question: I've noticed a  curious development that seems to happen in spite of anything I do -- there seems to be a Sim who is designated as the bad luck Sim, the one who is always having crises, especially when things are going very well. This unfortunate Sim just can't seem to cut a break. Two of my Sims, one born in game of CAS Sims in the first game, the other a CAS in my new game, have this curse. So I'm wondering, does Maxis deliberately program it so that somebody in the game is constantly having bad luck?

Something else that made me think Maxis has a list of character types or behaviors that must be in the game is what happened when I deleted Mortimer Goth in the first game (before I knew you should never delete Sims). Mortimer was being a pain, running into peoples' houses and starting fights. I found him tiresome so I decided to move him out of his house and then delete him. Instead of being rid of his behavior, I then found that John Burb suddenly became confrontational and difficult. So it appears that the disruptive behavior that Mortimer was demonstrating is something Maxis thinks is essential to the game.

Does anyone know for sure, or think, that this stuff is programmed into the game (to make it more like life, I guess?)?

Regarding doors that won't close, I had one of those yesterday. It was a double-door in a house in Pleasantview (not one that I built). I tried to remove the door so I could replace it, and of course it said it was 'in use', so that didn't work. I didn't feel like bothering to do the moveobjects thing, and was going to figure it out later, but I inadvertently fixed it. I had placed a wall phone on the wall that the door opened on, so the open door was blocking the phone. I moved the phone so the Sims could get to it, and immediately the door closed. Lesson learned.

Thanks very much, JM.

Yesterday I installed Macrostatics, and today I was going to install autoyak and skillinator, but I got a message saying a file with that name already exists. Does that mean that autoyak and skillinator are already in Macrostatics, or did I skip a step? It sounded like those two hacks were separate, from what JM said in his post about the updated Macrostatics. Can some knowlegeable person help, please?

I was asking for the RTFM because someone suggested that I read it, so I thought it was just one big document that covered everything. I see now that it's different for each hack, so there are a lot of them. I don't even know what it stands for, except maybe Read the Fucking Manual? (Guessing).

Thanks, gjam, you understand how I felt when I posted. I've been reading the posts here for about a week and came to the conclusion that everyone here is a programmer and that I would be scoffed at for having the temerity to ask a question. Like a little kid coming to the table where all the grownups are talking.

Thank you too, BlueSoup. This place is such a vast improvement over the Sims2 message board, even though I don't know a quarter of what anybody's talking about.

Can someone telll me where to find the RTFM? I did a search but didn't find where it is.

Also, back to my issue about the blank wants panel, I neglected to note that I had six panes, not four. After finding the other posts about this issue, I saw that other people had six panes too. I forgot already what the significance of that is, but I thought I'd mention it.

Thanks. I will install the Pescado hacks. Last night I uninstalled and reinstalled everything -- TS2, Uni, and NL. When I installed NL the first time  I realized that I had neglected, when installing the first 2, to turn off all the programs that they say you should turn off before running the game, and decided that maybe that was the reason for all the things that had gone wrong since I started playing.

I am now starting with a blank slate, so maybe things will go better. I realize, after seeing the responses to my post, that the game itself is full of bugs, but at least I know I installed it right and can take the suggestions made here to keep crazy things from happening.

To Neriana and BlueSoup - I didn't realize that hacks would help! I'm such a novice that I thought I was safer if I didn't download anything but EA/Maxis stuff. This is interesting!

To rainbow, I do have Uni also. I didn't experience anything odd after I installed that. The odd things that happened when I first installed TS2 stopped after I quit without saving and removed some furniture that I think was causing the problem. After that, there were no more crises.  Now that I think of it, one weird thing did happen after I installed Uni, but nothing like what's been happening now. More than you asked, but that's the answer.

To Syberspunk and Ancient Sim 2 - I am a complete virgin when it comes to TS2 - I have no hacks, no mods, no custom content -- no nothing but what Maxis gave us, so those would not be the cause of the problem. I've been having weird things happen ever since I installed TS2, so I guess this is just an elevation to the next level of weirdness. I did do a search on empty wants panels, but nothing came up. I guess I used the wrong search terms. I'lll try some different search terms and see what pops up.

I got my computer about 4 months ago and it should be able to handl e games, but maybe I should check to see if I can upgrade it. Maybe that explains the weird things that have happened, besides this wants issue. Maybe a reinstall is what's needed.

Thanks for responding. You've both given me some ideas about what could be causing the problem.