Bork, bork, bork!

[strangetomato]

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking, too. Not a good sign. Not good at all.

I'm going to be out of town for the week, but I think I'll be starting on the great rebuild project when I get back. Maybe I'll take this as an opportunity to start things over from scratch and choose only to extract the lots and things I can't do without. Everything else can just go back to square one. On a positive note, this could be an opportunity to play through the lots in a more precise Prosperity Challenge style, and I can be more exact about aging everyone at (more or less) the same rate. To play through it all again will take a looong time, but it might be fun. I could do makeovers. I could post on it.

What do you think? Play through or artificially age everyone? I'm going to have to add in the children artificially, either way. Those poor (or maybe lucky?) sims will have no recollection of giving birth! :P

Comments

[lolawastamed.livejournal.com]

*sad face*
I'd kinda like to see a fresh start. Those are just always interesting to me.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Starting over is always a lot of fun, I agree, but I do need to keep things consistent enough with my story world to be able to keep going with that. For anything that hasn't factored into the story yet, I can go ahead and start over, though. Maybe I'll get a more interesting result this time! ^_^

[madame-ugly.livejournal.com]

I'd say do a mix, based on your mood. There are some households that, no matter how gungho you are, you just can. not. get through without a little help.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

There are a handful of Maxis folks that I just haven't been able to get into, but I've been working my way through most of those lately. Maybe another go at them will help me warm up to them.

My real concern is uni. I've recently played nearly all of the uni playables through college (using that hack that reduces the time to 1/4 of its original length - I'm not THAT crazy!), so I'm not keen to do that over again. Even aging them artificially will take a lot of time. I need to research a quicker, easier method.

Or I could always extract them as adults and bypass uni altogether, if they're not already attached to the megahood. That might be an option.

[cindyanne1.livejournal.com]

That sucks that you're having trouble with your hood. :( But it sure can be fun to start fresh, too. Sometimes I get the urge to re-create some of my story game lots/hoods and play them just to play them. :D

I agree with Madame... maybe do some lots from the beginning and some artificial depending on which would be more fun to play.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

I have way too much fun "just playing" my story sims, which is why most of them are already maxed out on their careers and have future!children that are way ahead of the story. :P Starting over will help with that, so it's a good thing.

I think playing the Strangetown characters again would definitely appeal to me, so I'll probably do those. It's not a very big town, so it shouldn't take too long.

[simgarooop.livejournal.com]

Oh man... the "distorted speech bubbles of doom". Not a good sign, but I am amazed you were able to keep the same neighborhood for so long :)

Good luck with the new neighborhood! It will take long, true, but it is also fun to do :). I always go with artificial aging because I am already a slow player, but what you end up doing should depend on what YOU find fun :)

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

I've been seeing those for quite a while now. They don't seem to be that much of an issue on their own (according to others in this thread), but as part of the whole, I don't think my hoods have a leg to stand on. The disappearing lots (and characters) are enough to convince me to start over. I think I'm going to do a reinstall of the whole game, just to be sure I've wiped everything completely clean.

Do you have any experience with upgrading lots that you've already redecorated? The Smith lot, for example, has been modified in my game and I'd hate to lose that work. Am I going to have to package it, move the family out, delete the house, and place the new one? (And dig the Summerdream house out of the water table AGAIN?! Ugh.) That's what's going to take the most time. Then again, redecorating from scratch would take even longer.

I'm going to try to keep it as fun as possible, for sure. ^_^ I'm planning to work this into the story, to illustrate the point of the Cordial sisters when they talk about the multiple realities of sim life.

[simgarooop.livejournal.com]

Don't worry about your lots, there is a way to save them :)

http://community.livejournal.com/thesims2/6049797.html

Before you reinstall your lots, be sure to make a backup of your Downloads folders and also package these empty lots (because if you try to move out the families, the lot will also get empty as well)

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Wow! I was considering that method to extract the lots, but I had no idea I could replace them that way, too! Thanks for pointing that out to me. *beams* Maybe this won't be so hard, afterall.

[lithium-lily.livejournal.com]

Ah, yeah...last time I saw that, my 'hood was becoming full of randomly resetting sims, and nobody could use the Bon Voyage food stands. :(

As for playing through or not...damn, that's a tough one! You're probably a long way ahead already, and it would be almost painful to start over...depends how attached you are to the in-game borns, I guess :P I know the feeling though, not long ago I restarted my Pleasantview after dutifully playing it through for a generation, but I had added too many families and it was getting to unwieldy. To avoid doing a repeat, I decided to put a bit of a twist on certain things and try new things with the "preset" storyline.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

I've been having issues with sims getting stuck in hot tubs lately, which is a new issue for me. I'm not sure if it has anything to do with the rest of my game issues, but the sum of the parts is getting pretty well borked right now.

I'll be adding the in-game borns back in (at least the ones that feature in the story - I may leave the ones that don't and try again), so that won't be a factor. It'll be fun to replay some of it, so I probably will, but then skip ahead with others. I'm going to make sure I don't add any extra characters to this hood, and keep from generating townies, so that should help with the number of characters.

I've been getting the urge to replay Pleasantview in a way that's very opposite the way I usually do. Like having Mary Sue start an affair with Don Lothario to get back at Daniel (which wouldn't be great for her friendship with Cass, but that's part of the wackiness of it), have Nina marry Darren and settle down, and things like that.

[lithium-lily.livejournal.com]

That's what I did with my Pleasantview! :D Not a complete reverse of what I usually do, but just different things. For example, I turned Don into an honest man who married Cassie and is (trying to stay) faithful to her, Kaylynn moved on to greener pastures and married Mortimer Goth and so on. It's been great fun.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Kaylynn and Mortimer? That's great! Sort of a nod to Sims 3, isn't it? Kaylynn could also meet a nice guy like Darren. She deserves it after chasing after unattainable men. :P

The poor thing always ends up dead in my Pleasantviews. She seems to be a magnet for a property fire (usually someone else's property).

[lithium-lily.livejournal.com]

Not really a nod to Sims 3, I never played the in-game families (I was miffed that it's not a proper prequel, so many sims are missing and Kaylynn is too young to even be there! I have my own, recreated Pleasantview (http://lithium-lily.livejournal.com/34849.html) but I'm still finding TS2 more fun to play so I haven't gotten very far.) Usually, I play Kaylynn as a naive girl who gets romanced by wily men (based on her extreme shyness and Family aspiration) but this time she went on to bigger and better things when Daniel got kicked out by Mary-Sue then fired her, and Morty employed her. :P And heh, a fire magnet? Occupational hazard, I guess! In my game, as Mrs. Goth she no longer does any cooking, the butler does ;)

[meetme2theriver.livejournal.com]

I thought the warped thought bubbles on their own were okay, actually. Sims do that sometimes when something's blocking their path or similar. It's when they start talking about the wobbly line (gossip, mainly, I believe) that you truly know you're screwed.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

That's good to know! It actually was something blocking their path, so maybe it's not such a bad thing. I've been seeing those scratchy lines for ages, but usually only when a sim is looking out a window.

As for the disappearing lots... well, that's just not good, no matter how you look at it.

[spyroeldragon.livejournal.com]

I always thought you could use the FFS lot debugger for corrupted memories/gossip. Now I'm kinda worried. >o>
But dang, that sucks, having to rebuild all that! D: I'm not sure what the best way to rebuild is; whatever option is more appealing to you is what matters. :)

[profbutters.livejournal.com]

By itself, yeah--it just may need a "Clear Gossip From All" from the Lot Debugger.

[docnerd.livejournal.com]

Sometimes that happens when there's a glitched object nearby. Try Forcing Error with the Lot Debugger before you zap the whole 'hood. It might be an isolated incident, and not something requiring a total rebuild. I got a skritchy thought bubble from a kitchen chair once... neighborhood-killing, it wasn't.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

I'm getting more and more glitchy objects these days, so there might be more to it than just this one object. There are a lot of little things, but the lots are the main issue. The disappearing lots are the real reason I'm planning to rebuild.

[orikes13.livejournal.com]

I highly recommend making yourself a checklist before you start the rebuild. I know for me it was very easy to forget steps along the way and then have to restart once again. I think I restarted about three times before I finally got everything done in the right order.

If I were doing your rebuild, I'd probably get everyone to about where they were, but artificially nudge them so they're more on an even keel as far as aging goes. THEN start playing in true prosperity style. :)

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

What sort of things would you include on a checklist for rebuilding a hood? Are you talking about the order of things happening with the characters or more technical stuff?

That's good advice, but the main issue is there are families I haven't played at all, and I'd like to get them all up to the same place. I suppose I could artificially age the families I've played with already, and then play the others. I'll see how I fee when I actually get ready to do it.

[orikes13.livejournal.com]

Yeah, a checklist for order mostly, but also to list out everything you need to get. When I did my rebuild, I messed up a couple times and added sims too early.

I recommend making a list of all the sims you need to extract as well as a list of all the sims you'll already have in the new hood. I'm assuming you'll use a new copy of strangetown or the megahood. It's also not a bad idea to make a list of all the lots you want to bring over. There is a trick for getting q clean version with deco but it requires placing it in a dummy hood first to ensure it's clean.

I would set everything up without adding sims, then make a back-up. This way if anything goes wrong adding sims, you don't have to start from scratch. Then also make a back-up right before you start playing.

As far as the other families you want to play, it is a good opportunity to work them in and catch them up, but will you miss the sims you have been playing? I think whichever will make you most excited about playing is the one to go for. :)

[timberwolfoz.livejournal.com]

I didn't comment at the time as I had no insight to offer, but I've been going through old posts and the thought struck me -- what about Phi's baby? Can that be recreated/made?

But as others have said, take the approach that works for you.