(Whoops...I originally was piggybacking on the only thread I'd found on this mod, and I finally realized that it was a Help thread. No wonder I was getting responses as if I'd asked for technical help! So it seemed to me I ought to start a thread instead.)

Just saw today that there is a new download with recolors of the cards for this mod. I was thinking that I'd never seen a thread anywhere on what people have been doing with Mog's cool mod that lets you send and receive postcards among your sims. So I'd love to hear what you've been doing with it and how you've liked it in your game. Do tell!

Edited to note that I fixed the spelling of Mog's username in the title. I hate getting people's names wrong, and I'm glad I can edit the thread title myself.

I'll answer your PM here in case it's helpful to someone else that saw the post on the upload.

Long ago I posted on Mog's system reporting an issue that I and Sunbee both had, where it caused our households to suddenly get 26k bills. Not a conflict with anything, just the postal system in itself caused it. I tested it extensively, and it would happen with no CC but the postal system in game, and it would go away when I removed it. Sunbee as I recall found the same thing.

While it is kind of an annoying glitch, I don't think it should stop anyone from trying the mod. Most importantly, should you get the bug, it will go away if you just take out the mod, so it's easily fixed if it happens. The important thing is knowing it could happen, so that you recognize the culprit if you get the glitch and save yourself having to 50/50 to find it. Secondly, it does not happen to everyone. Lots of people use it without getting 26k bills, so you may be able to use it and never have a problem. Sunbee and I got it, but I didn't get it immediately and not in all households, and I seem to recall it was random for Sunbee as well. Back then I removed the mod, but I have since added it back and I haven't gotten any 26k bills this time around. It may come, but if it does, I know what the problem is and it's no worse than removing it.

So if you think it's cool and you want to give it a try, I say go for it. If you come across 26k bills, you can remove the mod and it'll fix itself. If you want to keep it despite the glitch, you can either cheat them money to pay the ridiculous bills, or you can use testingcheats to force error on the bill and delete it which counts as paying it as far as the game is concerned.

I've had the mod for ages but always forget about it being there. I'd love to make a post office lot for it coupled with (I think Exnems) parcel system objects. Although, isn't the card wrack not updated for OFB? Did anyone update it so you can sell the cards on a business lot?

the postal service must be really broke if they're charging 26K for delivery of a card.....

Absolutely love this mod and it's central to my game. Every single new sim will visit the post office to pick up a mobile and some of these cards. They are fantastic for romance sims "Can I buy 10 packs of Your the One for me". Uni Sims buy packs to keep in touch with their friends and family back home. Sims of good manners always send birthday cards, thank you cards, and "celebrate your wedding". Sims who want to get along in business, like the mayor of the bank manager will send Friendship cards suggesting "lets do tea". I would love this system to be expanded into "lets do lunch" so when sims receive their cards then they could book a group outing to a restaurant. For me Mog Hughson has provided a system which gives greater gameplay, storytelling and personalisation. I love the fact that they provide small social boost when a playable sim receives them.

Their my big source of clutter in a house, birthday cards, new baby cards, christmas cards are all around, and because there is so much a choice with so many variations, (and you have a template to make your own) sims cards are chosen to suit and reflect them. LOVE THIS MOD. I personally have never had any problems with them. :lovestruc

@snufflepaws - Works beautifully on both unowned community lots and also owned business lots. It gives sims something else to buy apart from perfume and the Maxis NPC's sell it happily. In owned business lots (every single owner in my game sells these) non playable and playable sims can buy them (although the are unusable if bought autonomously). If you send your sim to any lot that has these priced for sale they can buy them and take them home and use them. Your business owner will get the profit from the sale and will also have to restock them. They are not meant to be bought for home (£400 for a rack) they are meant to go into business community lots so you can buy a pack of cards for about £30.

Oh, my goodness! So much good information already.

@gummilutt, I really appreciate you coming by and sharing your follow-up experience. It's very helpful to know that you and Sunbee both tested it to try and find a pattern to the appearance of the $26K bills. Will keep that in mind and see what happens with my game. I'm thrilled to hear that you're now using it again without problems---that seems promising.

And @Diovanlestat, wow, you really love it! That's just the sort of sharing about play experiences that I hoped for when I started the thread. Thanks for answering the question about usage on OFB lots too. I'm getting really excited in thinking now how I can use the system in my game.

Please, folks, keep the comments coming---if you use the mod and love it (or don't!), I want to hear about it!

Oh, I've always found that I could not set the cards for sale. Maybe I have the wrong version. I did download it when I was very nooby. xD

Just posting to verify gummilutt's report. I have not tried to use it again. Maybe I should, now I have UC. I loved the idea of it. I am one of approximately three people left in the world who actually hand writes letters--the other two are my mother-in-law and a dear friend in her eighties, who not only writes letters but sends them for everyone she knows' birthdays and anniversaries. I want to be her when my kids grow up.

I handwrite letters too, usually appreciation letters. I like that something akin to this is possible in The Sims 2 thanks to this mod, and I have a few Sims who are quite free with the card-sending (most recently, it's been a penchant of Céline Chii's). And unlike some of the offline recipients of my letters, none of my Sims has ever attempted to autograph a card they were sent.

I never got the damn thing to work at all, and I wanted it to so badly

From what I remember of this mod, the non-playables who buy these cards (and it is autonomous) do not ever have them show up in inventory, but it does count as a purchase on community lots, though.

I've never tried it with a playable buying it and then using the system. Perhaps I should. Re-reading the information about it clarifies the way it's supposed to be played, and it looks like I've not been playing it correctly.

Most of my playables end up with cards in their inventories. I don't send them to buy cards they just buy them when I am playing the Post Office. They are a big seller.

I second what Jo said for my own game. Reading Diovanlestat makes me think that I need to go further with this mod.

I really appreciate everyone sharing their thoughts---and I'm thrilled to hear that it might inspire some others to revisit how they're using the mod (or to start using it).

Planning on putting it in my game this weekend when I'll have more time to test. Will post with my experiences too. In the meantime, anyone else who wants to comment and share about it continues to be welcome!

I suppose I could throw in how I use it in my game. It's very casual though, and not much help for setting it up as a postal system.

There are two supermarkets in my game that sell the cards. One is the supermarket in my mall, which is my go-to lot for anything Sims need to buy, and then Mootilda's MiniMart-lot, which I go to when I feel like a quick trip to the corner store is more realistic. I also use Numenor and MaryLou's post card stands, to buy cards they can gift to each other with presents. I primarily use Christmas cards, graduation cards, wedding cards and baby cards. I like my Sims homes to reflect the time passing, but I'm much too lazy to send cards all that often, so that is a good compromise for me. There's something nice about having a side-table somewhere in the house displaying all the congratulations of the baby being born, and a coffee table during Christmas where the christmas deco mingles with cards from the family.

I would probably use it more often, if it weren't for a couple of things. Silly things, I admit, but they bug me enough to make me kind of forget to use them more often. The main one is that all the card packs have the same name, the only way I know of to distinguish them is to click on them with a Sim, which means I have to take all of them out of inventory and click to see which one is the one I wanted. I suppose one could also place them in the house somehow and keep track of it that way, but I find the card packs ugly to look at, so I don't want to look at them. Secondly I associate them with frustration, because when I first got them I couldn't figure out how to make a Sim write. I think it had something to do with Sims sitting down to write, for some reason I could only get it to work if I placed a new desk and chair in an empty area for the Sim to sit and write at. I'm positive that was just me being inexperienced and not getting it, but that feeling lingers and I assume sending cards will be annoying.

Finally, I've pretty much finished with my testing of this mod in my game. And I love it---it's a keeper! I especially like that it offers a framework that supports lots of different gameplay ideas---many of which @Diovanlestat was the first to mention (and so inspiringly) above.

Testing Comments (with Links to Further Testing Info) on the Card System

Overall testing with the PCSims parcel system and postbox



I've performed and offered a detailed writeup here of all my testing on MogH's mod right along with two PCSims objects (I don't know whether they might be the ones @Snufflepaws was referring to in her post quoted above, but the PCSims ones also seemed natural companions for the MogH system and have made for a nice package/post facility in my hood; more on this below).

I enjoy repurposing lots already built by someone else, so in my megahood's case, what used to be Belladonna Cove Groceries has had its interior redone and is now the Central Park Pack and Mail, with a PCSims postbox (and several items from the lovely Honeywell Patio and Garden set; thanks again, gummilutt, for pointing those out to me!) outside plus a PCSims parcel-service terminal, AL vending machines, a MogH card rack, and a University mobile-device vending kiosk inside.

(Since I was testing them out anyway, I also started a thread to share and collect information on the PCSims' parcel service and postbox. My OP in that thread contains the "manual" I wrote for those two items, plus some gameplay ideas for using them. Thanks to help from other posters, there's started to be quite a lot of other info in that thread too on how people use those other two systems, including a link to previous pics by @joandsarah77 of her post office as well as a link to a "Let's Play" in which I am told that Jessa demonstrates the system.)

OFB and autonomous usage (or not)

I never have tested any of the items mentioned on an OFB owned-business lot, so I can't speak to how they would work on one. I thought I did remember reading somewhere that the PCSims parcel service would not function on an owned-business lot, though.

In my tests, sims only ever used (receiving and sending) the postbox autonomously; they preferred to interact with one another or check out the vending machines rather than to autonomously patronize the parcel terminal or the postcard rack. I assume that this is just because the postbox's advertising must be set significantly higher than that of the other two systems.

This means that in my play so far, I haven't been able to compare what happens when playables buy the MogH cards autonomously. So far, none of my sims have bought them that way, that I know of, though again I'm sure this is just a function of the combination of objects on the lot where most of mine bought their cards.

Finding a surface on which sims could do their writing



I was especially glad @gummilutt mentioned this possible drawback---it meant I didn't feel like an idiot when I couldn't quite get it to work either at first! It does turn out that the box of cards being used must be in the very same room as (not even in the next room over to) an empty seat, either at a desk or table. So once I got that part down, things went more smoothly.

Nevertheless, to make things more aggravating, routing to that empty seat is tricky and not cleverly calculated, as I found out when I explored having two sims at once use the same box. (Newlyweds writing thank-you notes in one case and roommates sending their individual Valentine's cards in another.) It's not a problem to use the same box in the sense that the first sim to start does not lock the card box as being in use. So the second sim can start using that same card box, no problem. But the second, in my testing, will often try to pick the same seat, even if the first sim has already sat down...and then the action falls out of that second sim's queue while they stomp.

I even tried using two boxes, set at different sides of a room with a dining table that had chairs all around. This sometimes worked better---the sims might sometimes each use a different empty chair at the table, though they often still got stuck insisting on the same chair. What I didn't try was just making each sim walk to a different part of the room and then queuing them up to use the card boxes---but I figured that there'd be no point in that, really. If it were that much trouble to get them to do it in tandem, it seemed that way too much micromanaging would be needed to keep them from continuing to fight for the same chair, especially if I then asked either to start with a different card type!

Interestingly, sims were not stymied by, say, a dirty plate on the table---they could pick a different seat in that case just fine. But another sim already sitting and writing a card, even with other seats in the room not taken, was something that stopped them in frustration too often.

Still, it worked great to ask one sim at a time to write, as long as the table or desk was in the same room as the card pack. I guess that if I insisted on being hyperefficient about it, then I could have put each writing sim in its own room, with available desk space and their very own card pack.

Totally agree with everyone who mentioned that it's really nice to have some area(s) in a sim home displaying several of the received cards! Makes the home that much more personal and gives me a reason to use cc that I have which provides additional slots. In fact, for me, that kind of cc was a solution to the problem of...

Storing the card packs



Yes, it would have been nice if the card packs could have been given a way to be better ID'd by type in inventory. As gummi suggests, it's cumbersome to have to move them in and out of inventory to figure out which kinds you have, and indeed they're not the most gorgeous things ever. One thing I found myself doing, whether storing them in or out of inventory, was getting each cardpack-owning family at least one of Numenor's Illumutations shelves on which to put all their packs.

There are a few sets of recolors for those shelves, so they can at least sort of coordinate with many decor types---and if not, there's always the options to build them a closet or place them inside a chimney space. Plus, because the Illumutations objects have up to three shelves (morph them using the shelf's own menu to have fewer shelves; the one-shelf configuration puts them at a perfect height to sit at the base of most non--full-length mirrors, for example), they have 6 slots available to put cards on. So instead of putting the card packs loose in inventory, I'd put all the packs on one shelf and then put that in inventory or in the home. Then they could all be moved at once out of inventory or into the room where card writing was to be done, and they would always be easily available to click on every one for identification purposes, without so much shuffling.

Alternative storage options I liked were the Under-the-Stairs storage set by mustluvcatz (see the Related tab on the download to find the also-very-useful Part II of that set as well) and mlc's one and two-tile Unclosets, all of which have "glass" of varying tints among the recolors. I liked using all those options from mlc most of all, because they were best for hiding all the packs away, yet still keeping them considered by the game to be "in" the room. In fact, mlc's under-stairs set even has an option to place an under-stairs desk...which it now occurs to me was a desk type I didn't test but that might be especially handy for using the cards with!

My Gameplay Ideas and Comments for the MogH System

In running the system in my game, I became appreciative quickly that Mog had enabled such a variety of card types! At the end of my thread-starting post about the PCSims parcel system and postbox, I shared some gameplay ideas already. Though of course those centered on how the parcel system could be used, sims also would need or want to send cards to follow up on or get all those parcel-oriented processes started.

So a sim looking to make a bit of extra money (in my hood, particularly a small at-home crafter of flowers or a budding tailor/seamstress) might want to send an invitation for tea to a business owner (respectively, a flower shop or dress shop proprietor), furthering their acquaintance so that each would later accept the other's invite to come over or go out to meet...and then exchange craftables made by the one for the other to sell in their shop. Of course, such a business arrangement would benefit from ongoing tea invites and then at least holiday greetings to one another and their families.

Sims planning major events would use them too, such as for planning a wedding or birthday party. Perhaps a mother of the bride would send an invitation to tea to the seamstress who might sew her daughter's dress for the upcoming wedding; later the bride and her mother would both send thank-you notes for the dress (which still would have to be transferred using Give Gift or teleporting in the seamstress and taking it out of her inventory...but nothing's perfect!). They could even pay the seamstress in goods by sending her a cellphone or computer, if I didn't want to transfer in cash for some reason. Other family members would be thanked as well after the wedding, including for parcels they might have sent (enclosing the wedding cake and toasting set?). And a birthday teen and her dad might send a thank-you card to the dad's sister for sending along the birthday cake.

So lots of thank-yous, but also friendship notes and notes for other celebrations. I particularly loved the sardonic sayings on Maxon's friendship cards. The one she has in that pack about choosing one's friends wisely is perfect for the (serious and grouchy) schoolmaster in my hood to send to his former private high-school students as encouragement and "advice," after they have left for college. And of course he'll send graduation congratulations to former students, who might send him their own invites for tea in return---perhaps to introduce him to their own children one day.

Best friends and BFFs now have another way to celebrate and congratulate each other on engagements, new births, and retirements. (I sort of wish there were a category for achieving one's LTW, though we're pretty spoiled for choice already!) And my hood has other situations in which thanks are in order but where I never knew before how to express that. Mog's cards can now also be used when a family loves their new puppy and wants to write of their appreciation to the breeder household who sold it to them. And of course, every situation in which a sim might get a parcel now can also result in a thank-you card in return! I'm delighted by this---especially because the PCSims parcels don't in and of themselves change relationship between the sender and recipient.

Well, I think that's quite enough typing for now. Thank you again to everyone who shared in the thread. And please, don't feel that this needs to be the end of it. If anyone else wants to share how they're using this card system, please feel free! (Though you may want to keep technical notes and questions mostly to the companion thread for it in the Help section, over here .)

Thanks for reminding me what the problem was. I knew it was something related to the Sim refusing to unless something about seating was just right, but no details. I don't think it would be that difficult to make it look for seats in the entire house, rather than just the room, and to ignore seats that are taken, but I've looked at Mog-written code in the past and I don't have high hopes that I'll be able to figure out which part is which in order to fix it. But perhaps one day I'll try to fix it. (EDIT: I read this again and I realize I may have been unclear. Mog was extremely talented and her code is complex. Me not understanding is not that the code is not great, it's that I am a noob compared to her and her mods are too complex for me at the moment)

I feel like it should also be possible to change the box-appearance to be different for each type of card. The game knows which type of box it is, so there is some difference between them. And even if it can't be automated, perhaps it could be made recolorable so you can have different recolors and use the recolor tool to change it after you buy a pack. I'll try to remember to ask someone more recoloring-savvy if they think that could be doable.

As I remember it, the issue might (and I don't know this for sure) be to do with how the cards are made. When you make them, you make them as a separate object with their own GUID - they're not recolours as Mog says on the thread. So, they're not a subset of the card display case or the box but linked together with the box via the selector sub-category (in the OBJD seen in SimPE) and possibly something else (don't know what so don't ask). It's the selector sub-category value that determines what sort of card the card is and that information is stored in the card file not the box or case.

I guess what might happen is when a sim buys a type of card, the selector sub-category value is transferred to the bought box which, when used by a sim in game, pulls up all the instances of that type of card in the selection screen so you can choose which one to use. The point is, regarding having different colours for different types of card, is that the box cannot have a particular colour until the sim (you) chooses what type of card you want to buy which would mean changing it's colour as you buy it - perhaps, certainly if you see the box handled by the sim before the decision is made. Alternatively, you could have a coloured box for every type of card - only Mog, when she first developed the mod, was keen to add more categories as time passed (which she did) and that would mean adding in, each time, a new colour, texture and so on rather than just adding to the code of the mod to accept a new variant of card (effectively just adding a new number to a list). I'm guessing it's something like that.

What might have worked is only having one box for each lot (so when a sim bought a new box, the object effectively merged with the box they already had) with the act of buying a new type of card simply adding a new option to the One Box. However, I think this means that she wouldn't have been able to include the part of the mod where the box can run out of cards (they get used up) and the box disappears and your sim has to go out and buy a new box to get more cards.

Maybe last year or so I was thinking of trying Moghughson's Postal system Mod, for some reason at the time I ask member gummilutt if she use it, at the time she told me yes but she had some not so pleasant experiences with it.
But she told me to go a head and try it because it work different for different players. Well Since my game was already running smooth and perfect like a clock, I did not want to add anything to it like a Mod that would give me any kind of problems.

So I "Never" try it or wanted to take a chance with it, now don't get me wrong I do use other mods by Moghughson's that work just fine I think her Mods are great, but the postal System Mod I can do without, don't want any problems and not looking for any problem in my game my motto is "If it is not broken don't fit it."

That makes two of us. I finally got rid of it after many tries. I'm guessing some sort of mod conflict in my case, and since I wanted to keep my mods at the time (and still do), never followed up on it.

Thanks, @gummilutt. It's exciting just to think that these things could be changed. The seating in particular does seem a bit odd. I mean, sure, you wouldn't walk very far from your box of cards in real life, but also in real life, you would actually have to get each card from the box in the first place, and that doesn't happen either.

Also appreciate maxon for coming by and sharing her expertise. It's true I would be reluctant to give up the feature where the cards run out and you have to buy a new box. Although I guess there's also something to be said about a One Box---it's not realistic, but it's easier to handle in game, as with storage and such. And I really like the idea that you could just click on the One Box and be able to select which kind of card you want to send then, the same way as buying card types from the rack works---especially if that made the One Box easy to recolor in your choice of patterns. Why shouldn't we say that our sims all have attractive home greeting-card storage boxes or even baskets, maybe that they've manually put all their storebought cards into? (I'm sure if a modder were really ambitious, something like the juicer-stocking interaction could be repurposed for that action.)

@Simonut, it's definitely true that a mod like this is probably not one you want if you prefer low-maintenance mods. There's cards you have to download in addition (and then you may not like all the cards and want to delete only certain ones from your download folder---it can't be done in game), and you would have to figure out which delivery system works well with your game. I think it sort of depends too on whether you are someone who likes or doesn't like adding complexity and additional factors to your game. I definitely am someone who prefers to mod my game for extra complexity---which doesn't necessarily mean more difficulty, though in my case it does. But I think anyone who prefers their game kept simple would not want this mod. It would be just one more thing to think about having sims do, and one more thing to tweak the setup for!

@DezzyBoo and @gazania I would totally love to hear more about what didn't work. That is, what happened? Did the cards never arrive in the mail? Or was it much earlier, and your sims never were able to buy them or write them, for example? Because if you were hoping to be able to use it, I'd love to help!

I would love to see her red box turned into a card display since it looks nothing like what you actually see when you go and choose a card.

It would just reset. I had everything installed and quite a few cards and they would pick up a card and do the "Sim Jump Reset" thing. There would be no card in their inventory. I eventually gave up and deleted it all and I was really excited to try it...

Some other mod you have is clashing with it.

The most innovative way in which I use the system is that it is the way in which impoverished Sims may apply for assistance from the Capp Charitable Foundation for the Assistance of the Deserving Poor of Veronaville and its Environs. As befits this venerable institution, its application process is as long and Byzantine as its title. Applicants must apply in writing. Sims who believe they may qualify for help from the charity must send a "Thinking of You" card to either Consort Capp (the Chairman of the Foundation) or Tybalt (the Treasurer). Then, after time for due consideration, you are likely to receive a telephone call from Capp Manor. Provided that your face fits, after several more telephone conversations, when your relationship is good enough, you will be summoned to Capp Manor, to appear in person before the Committee (consisting of Consort and Tybalt). If the Committee is convinced of your case, you will be handed a wad of Simoleons by either Consort or Tybalt. The institution was founded by Consort to forestall any possible attempt by the government to institute a system of taxation. He considered that the twice-weekly bills he has to pay for the upkeep of Capp Manor quite crippling enough, thank you. He considers that there is no need for taxation when good old-fashioned patriarchal charity can do the job. And it keeps the final decision making where it rightly belongs, in the hands of the Great and the Good.

Consort and Tybalt have mellowed a little over the years, in part as they have both fallen madly in love with their respective girlfriends, so they are not quite as formidable as they once were. The arrangements of the Foundation are liable to change over the next few months as both Consort and Tybalt marry their sweethearts and move out, leaving the Manor to Juliette and Hermia, both still schoolgirls. Consort is however minded, to keep the running of the Foundation in his and Tybalt's hands, as he feels that the girls might be liable to be too soft-hearted.