The Smythes - Instant Neighbors

[verenaheu]

This will be the 4th lot with a family that I get for my game, and I´ve never met those problems you´ve mentioned. They had some memories of unknowns, but it all stayed in their own little head. Or at least in their memories.
So I´m giving the Smythes a good start in my Riverblossom Hills, where they all start. Thanks!:)

[Chairman Greg]

J00wish - The really biggest potential problems with installing a loaded lot that I can think of are:
[LIST=a]

• incompatible or unwanted game hacks -- Could mess up your game play or even crash your game.  That's why I took all my lots off line.  Every one of them had old versions of game hacks embedded in it.  Ick.
  
  You also could possibly see game hacks that you don't want.  F'rinstance, someone who has kids at home might want to keep adult hacks out of the game.
  
  
  
• unknown sims -- Mostly it's a problem with memory clutter, and not a problem until it gets to be extreme.  
  
  One of the primary symptoms of too much memory clutter is when your sim can't use the telephone to make a call.  That's because when you tell a sim to call someone, he loads a little catalog of everybody he knows.  If there are too many people on the list, he'll jump out of the routine instead; or if you have the Testing Cheats enabled, you'll get a seemingly endless list of error messages.
  
  It can also slow down your game as your sim has to sort through more and more memories.
  
  I have experienced both of these, but your experience might be different depending how you play the game.  My primary viewpoint character (the infamous ne'er-do-well Gregsim) is something like 200 days old, has lived in dozens of households in his home neighborhood, and has sired dozens of woods colts that have gone on to produce their own offspring.  In my game, he is the sim most likely to suffer from memory clutter, which is too painfully close to real life! :laugh:
  
  
  
• ID conflicts -- You might install something that has the same internal ID as something else that you already have installed.  Suddenly your favorite sims might look funny, a hack stops working, or your sims begin to exhibit inexplicable behavior.  
  
  
  
• Stuff you don't want -- When the game packages a lot, it adds in every recolor of every object that has ever been on the lot.  That's a relatively benign problem other than the annoyance of having to clean out a bunch of stuff that doesn't appeal to you.  It could be a more serious problem if the lot contains versions of things that you don't want to see, or don't want your children to see.
  
  There's always the risk that if you install lots and lots and lots of stuff, eventually you'll hit a memory overrun and your game just won't run.  I've heard of this happening but it seems to be very infrequent.  Removing some downloads invariably solves it.
  

In all those cases, you end up stuck with spending hours to hunt down and delete the unwanted content.  Delphy's Download Organizer is a great help in finding things that are lurking among your tens of thousands of downloads.

The fix for the memory overrun problem is to get into SimPE and edit the sim's memories.  Get rid all memories of unknown sims and any other mind clutter.  (Ancient gossip is never essential.)


As a general rule, I'd suggest that you always use Clean Installer and if you don't know what it is, don't install it.

[J00wish]

First of all.... Greg, you rule! I appreciate the time and effort you put into explaining this. I cannot thank you enough! *hugs*

My only question left is really a n00b one. If I create a lot and family for the sole purpose of packing up and using as family starters do I have to remove the mods and any custom content in folders when creating them? Or will the custom content ONLY matter if I select it to use on the lot? Sorry if this is a silly question.

To create a lot JUST to package with a family:
1. Create lot. Make sure it's ONLY maxis content used.
2. Create family. Again, make sure ONLY maxis content is used.
3. Move family into lot and save without seeing visitors.
4. Package lot and family (will this work by selecting lot?) from neighborhood profile.

Is that about right?

Also, is it better to create a storyline for these neighbors? I have yet to do that for any of my Sims. It's a weak point.

Again... thank you for EVERYTHING!!!!!

Odessa

[Chairman Greg]

Yup, steps 1-4 sound just right.  Don't forget also:

5. Quit the game.
6. Double-click the exported lot so that Clean Installer will open it.
7. Select "Lot segment only" in Clean Installer.  Then click On the boxes next to the family members and their catalog.  (This eliminates hacks and extraneous content.)
8. Save with an informative file name.

They idea here is to create a version where the only embedded content is the family members.

That will create a much smaller, leaner, safer .Sims2Pack file; and that's the one you should zip up and post.


The one thing I did differently was between steps 3 and 4, I tuned up the Smythe family's personalities, relationships, jobs, and skills.

[Chairman Greg]

Addendum: To be precise, here's where you package the lot in step 4:


Package the lot from the neighborhood screen.

Make sure to select "Package lot to a file."

[FLeXuS_GReeN]

linda...

[Chairman Greg]

gracias

[misstickles1980]

Good Job

[willisj]

Thanks Greg, good work and a great idea. Thanks for sharing the Smythes with us all.

[tibby13]

you are a god! I love it and it works great. I put them in after  having to uninstall and reinstall my game due to corrupted files (me and my hacks) and they work great. Thanks for the prefabricated family.