From what I know you can't access a package file that's already loaded into the game using a thrid party program such as SimPe. However if you have say a copy of the package file and are using that to edit, it could be very beneficial to hack it into the memory process, effectively replacing the memory used by said package, and see how stable TS2 might be. Like most programs TS2 can have its runtime processes and memory management hacked into. Figuring out how to do that opens possibility of a real-time mod. It might not be a 'pretty' looking mod on the outside, e.g. it might require third party hacker tools, but I am sure it can be done. Just a matter of figuring out how and still keeping TS2 stable.

My brain keeps wanting to call Johnny Smith "Johnny Nigmos". Maybe I should take that as a hint from my subconscious.

A while back I'd set up an urban fantasy city as a location to start collecting a lot of my modern buildings in, so that I might actually one day have a location that I wanted to play. At this point that seems to be working fairly well, and while it's not complete enough to actually start telling stories with yet, it's been helpful in other ways too. For one, it's helped me figure out what aspects of my creations work well together, and for another, it occasionally has inspired me to work on different things that I might not otherwise have thought of, but that fit in with what I'm envisioning for various locations within the city.

I'm thinking I need to set up something similar for medieval/fantasy locations, but at this point I'm still stuck on the worldbuilding side of things, trying to figure out how all the different fantasy elements I already have or know I'd want to include would integrate best into a plausible (at least within the game) setting that, again, would one day maybe be something I'd want to actually play!

Why is it so much work setting up a neighbourhood... or more like creating one but still... I have p much most of the lots built but I'm not satisfied because I'm a level 1 crook when it comes to building and I've been spoiling myself with CC lots from level 100 mafia boss builders from the internet and all the lots I've spent hours making are butt ugly... why did I ever start making my hood, nobody will ever play it, I will never play it because it's so much of a hassle to put together... ugh why am I like this...

it does become a tedious chore when it's nothing you want to play. It takes me days to get something I really like to put together and then I'll throw it out because it's not working to please my aesthetic taste. All that hard work for nothing. But at least it gives you practice and knowledge of what you don't like to build.

I feel like I'm more creative with building when there's a story and financial limitations behind the building, which is why I'm enjoying my BACC. We are in desperate need of a cemetery so ghosts won't harass my poor sims, and the residents all seem like they would be fairly religious, so I can't wait to build them a modest church with a graveyard attached. And I've enjoyed building their homes, the grocery store, and the flower shop in a way that fits with the story. I struggle with inspiration most when I have no limitations.

I like having several neighbourhoods in different stages.

So for example:

One with all lots and sims with entrenched stories that I can just jump in and play without any setting up - sometimes I "cheat" here and use premade hoods, maxis or downloaded. Or just an older hood.

One that I'm building ready for sims to move into - sometimes I build all (or a minimum of) lots first.

One that has fairly new sims and a minimum of lots so that I can start playing, but I'm just getting to know everyone and there aren't stories established yet. Probably I will redecorate some of the starter lots, or add more community lots or homes or do some hood deco, but I can still play in the meantime.

This means if I'm in the mood to build and decorate, I can play a hood that needs those things doing. If I'm in the mood to just play and I don't want to be encumbered by thinking oh I can't send X to the arcade, there isn't an arcade here.

And if I like a lot enough I will keep it and move it to a new hood.

I always have more ideas for hood setup than I can reasonably manage so I never run out

I feel ya! About a month ago now (maybe a few weeks ago), I decided to tackle the ambitious project of remaking my first serious custom hood from 2017. It will have lots (mostly downloaded, because I can't build to save my life), it will have sims with their own stories, memories, and struggles, it will have lore, it will have ancestors, it will have townies handcrafted by me for the first time, and other things. This is just for me to play, so I can include CC if I want.

So far I have some lots I downloaded from here, six families out of, over ten anyway, created, and three batch of ancestors made. The purpose of this hood is to just play for story, so setting everyone up for a story is a pain. I'm even writing bios for the playables! Setting the ancestors up has been a great pain, but I'm managing...

I'm just doing it in short bursts though, so if I ever feel like playing, I'll play a premade hood, or something. Lately, I've not been doing much playing, but I've been doing this custom hood when I have the time. It is a time consuming task to say the least. However, imagining what it's going to look like when completed has me a little excited

So in Pleasant Sims' Fairplay hood, Bella's equivalent Beau was changed to have actually died, and not by aliens but by satellite. However the Caliente sisters' equivalents, the Caliendo brothers have a household bio that still suggests thay had something to do with this. Which would be fine if Beau was abducted and never returned, but he was killed by a falling satellite.

I see two explanations to this:
1) They used military connections to get the satellite to move in a way that made it re-enter the gravitational pull and fall on Beau
2) They flew up to space and threw the satellite with their hands

I'm gonna go with 2 because it's funnier

Never really found the satellite funny. Death by piano now that's funny. Death by woohoo even funnier.

I am your god and I subject you to death by woohoo.

My head canon about the Garden Club who can't be aged up, can't be fed to the cow plant, etc. We know they all live together... somewhere. I think they all live in a secret grove in the woods where they have all sorts of exotic plants that keep them from aging or dying or doing anything at all really, and the reason they can't be fed to the cow plant is they are the ones who bred the cow plant in the first place and the cow plants worship them. They all look so boring so that they fly under the radar and no one suspects that they are actually pretty much gods in Simworld. If they leave the secret grove (i.e., become playable), they lose their "membership" in the Garden Club, access to all the cool plants, and then age and die like everybody else.

I struggle from that too. Specifically the part where once the 'hood is established it becomes hard to further progress. I get tunnel vision with mine. I want them to look a certain way, I want them to evoke certain feelings a particular way. Eventually I get things set up though to the point where I don't feel like playing anymore and start a new 'hood only to repeat the process. I've got at least 6 'hoods which I never or rarely visit and that's even just on the nhood screen.

I often look at my 'hoods and wonder why did I create this or, bigger question, is this worth sharing? I want to share a populated 'hood so badly but I had done the math and 2.67 Gig is what I use average CC-wise for each 'hood so I know I can't share them easily. Plus I tend to use cleaned-up templates and not empty templates so I still get the Ramaswami and co. families. Seeing Nwh-wr (Modern yet Fantasy Egyptian nhood) here on MTS is but a pipe dream.

Just making something because you enjoy the process of making it is a perfectly legitimate approach too though... I don't do that so much with TS2 anymore because I'm always building with an eye towards uploading, but some of the other non-Sims related stuff I create is just because I enjoy creating it. (e.g., I've started making maps of various fantasy settings again, just to kind of give settings to some of the vignettes I imagine... maybe one day I'll turn them into neighborhoods, who knows?!)

Well, even though I am aware that there are amazing builders and I admire them very much, I don't mind playing "not so well built" neighborhoods, they usually have interesting sims or a good backstory, or maybe the houses are quirky and fun. I even like neighborhoods without any specific purpose. I find the simplicity and realistic "ugliness" of the sims 2 very appealing. I love to see how according to the creator; the style of construction, the concept and the essence are totally different from each other.

I've played all modthesims neighborhoods and found them all fun (except the last 4 uploaded as I haven't had the time yet, but they look great, some are superior to Maxis). So I think you shouldn't worry so much about "nobody will want to play it" you will always have an audience that wants to try it, and more so on a world known page like this. Sometimes building a neighborhood is tedious and I personally love having many custom ones to choose from. In fact, I think I currently have all the populated neighborhoods uploaded to this page in my game.

Personally I think that sometimes expert builders use too many tricks and recreations of functions that are not in the game to have constructions that visually look incredible but when it comes to playing they are uncomfortable or overload the game. Although it is something that I see more in the increases of houses, in the personalized neighborhoods I usually see much more balance in that aspect.

edit: I saw that you were talking about building for yourself, in that case I understand you, but I still think that it is better not to obsess so much with perfection, in the end it happens to all of us that we spend months building to finish without actually playing simulation. Many times I prefer a simple terrain with nothing and three houses instead of having everything build and perfect from scratch. When The Sims 2 was just the base game, you couldn't see anything around the house, you seemed to live in a lonely place surrounded by roads, and it was still fun.

Good advice. I've been this way with a skyrim mod I've been creating but it hasn't correlated well into my TS2 modding practices. :/



I still have mine set up that way via options and then neighborhood view distance set to low setting and nhood deco off. I love it this way, makes it feel more sim-like. Plus, tbh, I don't really see a need for nhood deco in lot view. It just clutters everything up...

Uhhh... **looks around shiftily, then runs out the door**

For me it has its charm, but I have become too used to the decoration and the rest of the houses.



If it weren't for the pink flashing I wouldn't be so critical about that xD

Anyway I love your constructions, I was inspired by your building to build an apartment block recently.

Glad to hear that (the second part, anyways! ) And as for the first, while I do still enjoy bigger creations, several of the worst offenders are lots that I specifically made to kind of test out the limits of the game, knowing that they probably wouldn't work great for people who didn't have higher-performance computers. My next upload is, I'll admit, another of these, but after that I'm looking at a few smaller and/or simpler creations (because I'm kind of tired of truly massive lots ATM!)

In my case, I have a fairly powerful computer and I managed to get the graphics to the maximum with almost no flickers. But when I load a lot of cc or very large houses it is inevitable that it will appear at some point -.- Really my computer could handle all those wonderful constructions if it weren't for that.

I also noticed that glitch tends to appear when there are many large houses together and you have all the decorating options turned on, but for me, the fun of downloading huge lots is filling the whole neighborhood with them creating a "city" effect. So, as it is impossible to achieve it in my game, I have decided to abandon that taste for mega lots and try to fake that effect with simple constructions without many tricks or foundations on the roof or things that I know that end up bothering me -.-

You know what really grinds my gears when it comes to 'tricks' with building? Lots that have that weird squished wall effect that you sometimes see with garages in particular. I can't explain it very well but when you see it, it is hard to unsee it. And if you put wallpaper over it the wallpaper will just be squished into the ground and not map in a straight seamless way. I dislike when builders use whatever trick causes this.

I also don't like lots with built-in basements because they cause terrain oddities and sometimes, depending on the lot, there may be a gaping hole into the blue wonder so to say.

This is why there's room for all sorts of builders of downloadable lots, and why we should not be shy of sharing anything we have that came out well, or that we built because we couldn't find a downloadable lot that suited us to do the job we wanted.

You can get beautiful effects from using CFE. I don't know how to use it and any time I download a lot that uses more than a very small amount of it I regret it. I can admire pictures of it, but I can't play with it. Other people play with them happily, and I'm glad they have so many choices available.

I dislike garages because of the 'squished' effect and the fact that the walls cannot be pulled down to level ground when you use that option. They're almost impossible to deconstruct as well. I dislike basements because they always require angling the view at a weird angle.
That's why I avoid any builds with either in the lot. Give me a basic old foundation and no funny tricks or angle to it!

Been reorganizing my CC and trying to delete stuff I never use or used only in one nhood, etc. Slimmed down my folder to 3GB from 7GB.

I understand you perfectly, the house looks great but that damn flickering wall makes my eyes go there, it is impossible for me to ignore it.

Sims 2 ghosts can be pretty dang scary. It's the weirdest thing. When the Sim is alive, they can be kindest, gentlest thing... and then when they die, they'll try to murder their own children. Making a cemetery is really the only way to go.