Originally I wrote this on the BBS on thesims2.com, but it could find a good home here too I bet...

Tutorial: How to get different Townies and NPCs in custom Neighborhoods
Ha! I've gotten so sick of the Pleasantview NPCs and Townies, so I decided to re-build them myself... First you need to not be afraid of using the "boolProp testingCheatsEnabled true" cheat, and not feel too attached to those Pleasantview characters.
1) Create a new neighborhood, this can be done from the title screen and clicking on the right arrow to go past the Maxis Neighborhoods and clicking on the create neighborhood button
2) Type in a name for your Neighborhood and the terrain type, add a description if you want, it doesn't matter
3) Now you have a custom neighborhood, time to start creating families right? WRONG! Exist the game
4) Go to the My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighborhoods\N00x folder (where x is the number for your custom neighborhood, if you are creating your first custom neighborhood, it's usually 4. Any others after that are neighborhoods you created afterwards) If you can't My Documents, go to C:\My Documents or C:\Windows\Profiles\Username\My Documents for Windows 98 or C:\Documents and Settings\Username\My Documents for Windows 2000 and XP.
5) Delete ALL of the files in the Characters folder, but do NOT delete the folder itself
6) Load the game and go to your custom neighborhood, and create a new family
7) Move your family into a lot, either one from the houses bin or a empty lot, it doesn't matter
8) Press Ctrl-Shift-C on your keyboard to bring up the cheat box, then type "boolProp testingCheatsEnabled true" and press enter
9) Hold down Shift and click on the Mailbox, go to the option that says Debug-Create NPCs (or something similar, but do not select the townies option yet) and press yes when asked, the game should then start to slow down and pause as it creates the characters, you should see their portrait come up when they are created. Do not shut down the game or restart your computer as it does this, you can inadvertently destroy your neighborhood.
10) When it is done, select the Debug-Create Townies button on the mailbox (holding shift when clicking to get the hidden options like before). The game will slow down and pause again, this one should take longer, so have a good book ready.
11) Now you have custom characters in your custom neighborhood, with the exception of the Headmasters for some reason (but that can be fixed by calling the Headmaster on the telephone to invite him over)
12)Save the game, play or quit for later

Enjoy everyone! I'll post this on my website when I have time too.

Instead of exiting the game to delete the character files manually, you could also run the "deleteAllCharacters" cheat within the game.

Um, if you delete every character won't that also delete the Pollination Tech's DNA and cause problems if your guys get abducted?

Here's a really, really fast way to get a clean neighborhood:

1. delete Pleasantville. If you actually use P'ville, just cut/paste the N0001 neighborhood to a different place, and restore at the end of all this.

2. Make a custom neighborhood.

3. Enjoy! Now, wasn't that easy?

Your new neighborhod is completely empty. You can wait for NPCs and townies to be generated randomly, or shift-click on the mailbox (with testingcheatsenabled) to generate them all at once.

Last edited by gnohmon : 17th Dec 2004 at 04:23 PM. Reason: Mention that it's empty....

MaxoidTom: If you use the cheat, the game copies the Pleasentview Characters again, so that is not an option (I checked using SimPE after doing so, they came back).

Motoki: The character files for those NPCs (Grim Reaper, Pollination Technition, Remote Control Car, etc.) are not stored in the Characters folder, they exist in the objects.package file so the game still keeps them when it purges the missing sims on the next load up.

gnohmon: The Pleasentview Characters are not copied from the My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighborhoods folder, they are stored in the Userdata folder which the game does not modify at any time, but uses to create the userdata for other accounts on the computer. If you do delete Pleasentview from your neighborhood screen, the game still finds a way to copy them, if you delete the Userdata folder in Program files, then you can end up with a crash (like I did) or even currupt you game (forcing a re-install)

The Pleasentview Characters are created when the neighborhood is first loaded or after the delete all characters cheat, at first I tried those, but I had to resort to this. As far as everything I've tried this is the only method that worked. Just using the debug action without deleting their charcter files can create two townie/servioce npc families, which caused my game to run too slow and eventually crash (may not happen to you, but it did for me).

Last edited by PatchesSim2 : 17th Dec 2004 at 11:15 PM.

Well J.M. Pescado had this to say about the Pollination Technician:



It's in this thread: http://forums.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=13821
scroll down to the last post.

I checked SimPE and that SimID 0x2E17B9FC does indeed exist in each neighborhood, usually it's character # is the next one after all the Maxis neighborhood people run out. His picture doesn't show because because it doesn't have a jpg apparently, so you won't see it in the sim browser but that entry for that sim is there.

Or is it just that he has that entry in each neigborhood's main package file but does not have his actual file in the characters directory?

"gnohmon: The Pleasentview Characters are not copied from the My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighborhoods folder, they are stored in the Userdata folder which the game does not modify at any time, but uses to create the userdata for other accounts on the computer. If you do delete Pleasentview from your neighborhood screen, the game still finds a way to copy them,"

Then why and how is it possible that after I deleted pleasantview and made a custom nabe, there were no townies and no NPCs in it at all? It really did work for me, I wasn't just theorizing that it should work.... And I really do believe you that you tried something similar and it didn't work, so let's compare notes and see why it worked for me and not for you.

Perhaps because I deleted *all* the default neighborhoods?

Or perhaps because I didn't "delete Pleasantview from the neighborhood screen" but instead deleted its files from Windoze? I deleted neighborhoods\n0001. I never even realized that you could try to trash a nabe from the game. Apparently this might leave the files in place but prevent the nabe from being shown?

Motoki: J.M. Pescado was talking about the Sim Description, which exists in the Neighborhood package, not his character file, that exists in the objects.package file (located in Program files, I'm too lazy to look up the exact location for it right now...), that doesn't get removed because his file isn't in the characters folder.

gnohmon: They do appear, and I did it with a second account on my computer (but that shouldn't matter), I deleted all the premade neighborhoods on that account and created a new neighborhood. I loaded SimPE and it was confirmed to be blank, but when I went back into the game and made a family they came right back, so no deleting the Maxis Neighborhoods does not work (they showed back up in SimPE). To answer you other question: The Neighborhood files do get deleted when Deleted within the game, all that is left in the folder is the picture of what it looked like on the selection screen (every character file has been removed, so it's not copying from there) Instead they are copied from Program Files\EA Games\The Sims 2\Res\UserData\Neighborhoods\N001\Characters, but the files cannot be removed from this directory, it's needed for some reason.

Last edited by PatchesSim2 : 18th Dec 2004 at 05:22 AM.

It's funny, because I deleted the premade neighborhoods and created a new neighborhood and moved in a family and there were no Townies nor NPCs at all. I let them be generated as needed, paperboy at 07:00 next day, mail carrier soon after, maid when hired, and so on. That was the neighborhood I used for weeks, and the "standard" townies and NPCs never appeared. I often checked the neighborhood with simpe....

I'll be making another new one soon, since last nite I got build/buy disabled on all lots for no apparent reason.

That's strange, because when I used the cheat when creating a custom neighbourhood, they were gone. Perhaps you typed the cheat in wrong or something?

Also, when creating NPCs make absolutely sure that the family you're using is COMPLETELY EXPENDIBLE, because the build and buy mode buttons for that family will be permenantly greyed out, even if they move house. This is because the game has to create Social Workers too, which are programmed to disable build n' buy mode on their very appearance upon a lot, even if it is just in a pop-up window.

Motoki: The bulk of thePollination Tech's data does indeed exist in objects.package, because that's where I found him when making my "Better-looking Poll. Tech" mod. He might indeed have a description file in the N00x package, but since all the data is in objects.package it's of no real importance, plus I've deleted that file in the past and the game has simply regenerated it anyway.

Okay that's good to know.

On a semi-related note, due to a bug in Simpe's surgery export (which Quaxi has since fixed) I have several sims who the game now references using the exported clone files in Saved Sims instead of their original files in the character directory.

Do you guys have any idea how the game knows the path to reference each specific character because I would really like to change them back to use the files in the characters directory again.

gnohmon: Hugh, weird, because whenevery I tried that they always were there... oh well, if it works for you then I guess it must be ok, but I never got it to work that way for me.

L-J: I typed the cheat exactly, and when I pressed enter, it asked if I really wanted to delete all the characters and I said yes, then the loading screen type thing came up again and re-created all of them (kind of pointless if you want all the characters to be deleted...)

Motoki: I just made clones of them in Bopy shop and deleted the files in the SavedSims folder (just the N00x_userwhatever.package files, not any of the custom skins or weird file names) and they were fine after that.

I have the patch installed, so that may be what's doing it (they changed something in the way it worked maybe?)

Last edited by PatchesSim2 : 18th Dec 2004 at 04:45 PM.

So you just copied those files over? *smacks head* DOH! Why didn't I think of that. Well SimPE did something funky when it exported them that actually made the game point to the clones in Saved Sims instead of the original in Characters. So when I try to delete the ones in saved sims the game crashed because as far as the game is concerned now, those ARE the sims in the neighborhood and the ones in characters are now cloned dummies.

Does that make sense? I guess what I am saying is I want to try and figure out how to get the game to point to the correct path again (ie the file in the characters directory) but maybe I'm SOL and they just have to remain in Saved Sims for the duration of their life.

Very strange. Did you actually see these sims in-game, or just in SimPe? If so then it might just be that their character files have been reduced to memory/family tree filler size and their sim descriptions kept for some reason. If so, then I guess your method would be the best for you, as it would remove the junk files, but for me the cheat works fine. :hmm:

No, the DNA will get regenerated.

The game should not copy the Pleasantview characters again after you have already created the custom neighborhood and then run the cheat. If it does, then that's a bug.

"Also, when creating NPCs make absolutely sure that the family you're using is COMPLETELY EXPENDIBLE, because the build and buy mode buttons for that family will be permenantly greyed out, even if they move house. This is because the game has to create Social Workers too, which are programmed to disable build n' buy mode on their very appearance upon a lot, even if it is just in a pop-up window."

Ah, so that's what happened to my game! Installing the patch (so I'm lazy...) fixed it.

By the way, I once got build/buy enabled by teleporting a social worker onto a community lot. It only worked for me once, though, once out of many tries.

i found a way to reenable the buy build after generating npcs 1st the family can be saved BUT you will have to move them out and bulldoze the lot hopefully you did not put them in a custom house best to try when they r in a litlle shack or some such easy to replace it worked for me another note never ever marry the social worker it disables buy build for anyone connected to the household no matter what lot you put em on or even if you move them to another neighborhood i never found a fix for that short of deletion.

btw all my sims are expenable unless they live in custom houses lol :claw:

Last edited by hotrod50s : 19th Dec 2004 at 09:18 AM. Reason: addon

This my first time reading this thread so pardon my lateness if this question was updated in another thread.

But what happens if you've already created your custom neighborhood. with all the cust families.
If I delete all the npc's files that are in the neighborhood will new ones generate from the pleasantville or from the charecter's in the cust neighborhood?


Update: for All of you who have create custom Neighborhoods and want differant NPC's but don't want to delete there custom families.

If you use Sim Enhancer or SimPE to identify the NPC's file names you can delete those files only and then generate new NPC's without disturbing your custom families. Works great I tried it and it works great.
Now remember it works for me because in my custom neighborhood I did not interact with any of the NPC's or townies so this did not affect any memories of my sims.

So before you try this just remember to *backup the neighborhood* first.

Last edited by karabrown : 7th Feb 2005 at 03:29 PM.

The cheat made my game crash. Everytime I get to a certain point (I'm moving a family into a house) it crashes. What might I have done wrong?

I had a few edited NPCs in Strange Town that I gave the alien skin tone. When I installed the EP they all reverted to the maxis defaults.

Last edited by poi_boi : 21st Mar 2005 at 04:13 AM. Reason: gramatical error

If I do not want townies at all, I can skip this step, correct?

I failed to restore my backup saves after I reformat my system then install sims2 and university.

No choice but to start all over but different. I deleted the entire Maxis-made neighborhoods (inside the game, not windows) then start my own custom neighborhood. Its bare and empty when you place your first sim in it's lot. New npc characters are only generated in my game but no townies.

I can enjoy seeing a community lot that only residents visit.

has anyone been able to edit the townies?

I have made some tests. First of all, there is a slight difference between these new townies and the regular townies (I mean the one shipped with pleasantville for instance). When, with SimPE, you add one of the townies to a family for editing, you HAVE TO remove it from the list of townies although it was possible to do the contrary with regular neighborhoods.

Now the problem :

I can't change the appearance (outfits, hair) of townies. I do not know why when I tell them to select another outfit, it does not show, the character spins as if he or she changed his clothes but nothing happens.

Do you know why?

I'm a bit confused, I apologize. I came to this thread searching for an answer to something... I'm just double checking that I understand this right here...

If I wanted to create a custom neighborhood, (i've been meaning to do this for awhile with my Drow project, I made one but I may need to start over)... I can use this cheat and then I can edit the townies and NPC's genetics?

Is that right?