Neighborhood Package Files: The Importance of Backing Up Your Sims Game

I never knew how risky playing the Sims 2 could be until my computer crashed a few weeks ago while I was saving the game. When I went back to re-visit the neighborhood, the entire neighborhood was gone! It didn’t even appear on the list of neighborhoods to choose from. Apparently, when the computer crashed, it corrupted certain files in the game and that particular neighborhood was no longer playable. Since I didn’t have a back-up neighborhood package file to replace the corrupted file with, I could only retrieve the characters and the lots, nothing else.

So, to help prevent this from happening to other people’s games, here’s an easy step-by-step for backing up your precious Sims 2 game files:

1) First, go into the neighborhoods file under “EA Games -> The Sims 2 -> Neighborhoods” then click on the neighborhood that you wish to back up data for. (In this case, I’ll back up Strangetown, neighborhood N002).

2) Next, go into detail view and search for the Neighborhood package file (which in this case is entitled “N002_Neighborhood”, when you hover over it the type should say “DBPF Package.” (The file should be rather large considering it holds all of the data for that particular neighborhood: memories, personalities, houses, community lots etc).

3) Now, copy the package file and paste it somewhere else on your computer. (Or you can always burn it to a CD). Do this for every neighborhood that you play often as, or any one that you would hate to lose. So the next time your game crashes, you won’t have to start completely over again! 

Next time, we’ll be exploring the extremely useful and amazing program SimPE, where almost anything is possible. We’ll resurrect random sims that you can’t legally do in the game itself, change personalities/genders and add sims to anyone’s family tree in the neighborhood! Don’t miss it!

Common Sims 2 Problems: Fixing a Broken Telephone

As an owner of all of the Sims expansion packs, one of the most common problems that has occurred to me while playing the game is with one particular object, the telephone. For some reason when I played on certain lots, the phone would stop working. My sims weren’t receiving any phone calls from their friends or families. When I tried to get one of my sims to call someone on the phone, they would simply walk over to the phone pick up the receiver, bring it to their ear before quickly placing the telephone back in its original position. They couldn’t call anyone, even if I replaced all of the telephones with new ones!

Now, I had read about this “broken telephone” problem happening in other sim player’s games and I knew that it was fixable. The problem was the only way to fix the “broken telephone” was to move my sims out of their lot and back into it. (Which doesn’t sound that bad, but I really didn’t want to have to go through all the hassle of picking up all of my sims belongings only to place them in their correct spots a few minutes later).

For awhile, I tried to live with it. My sim families that had the “broken phone” just made as many friends as they could to keep their promotions and looked for their friends online in hopes of seeing them before the “why didn’t you call me” pop-up came up. I tried to buy cell phones, but for some reason they always seemed to disappear after only a few uses (apparently that was a glitch in the Apartment Life expansion pack). I continued playing the game as I usually did, in the hopes of one day finding a new solution to the problem. I never knew that day would be today.

I was playing with one of my sim families that has a broken phone, when something unusual happened on the lot. I heard thunder and screams coming from outside. It turns out something on the lot caught on fire (all thanks to Seasons), causing the family butler to race into the house, pick up the telephone and call the fire department. After the fire department came and went, I heard an unfamiliar noise on that lot, it was the telephone ringing! Somehow, the butler calling the fire department caused the phone to fix itself! For the next few hours on the lot, the family received all of the calls that they missed when their phone was broken (including all of the checks that the father received for his various novels).

Intrigued after this strange situation, I decided to test it out on another family’s lot that has the “broken phone” problem. Sure enough, when I hired a butler, caught something on fire and the fire department came and went, the telephone worked good as new!

So there is a way to fix the “broken telephone” problem without having to move your sims out of the lot and here it is:

1) First, hire a butler. (To do so, you’ll have to buy a cell phone and call for one under “Service.” Cell phones are only available with the Sims 2 University expansion pack).

 2) Next, set something on fire when the butler is on the lot. (You can either wait for the weather to catch something on fire with the Sims 2 Seasons, or you can put something in front of the fireplace using “move_objects on.” But I find the easiest way to set something on fire is to just buy one of those fire jets that come with the Sims 2 Nightlife expansion pack and turn it on when another object is above or next to it).

3) Wait for the butler to call the fire department. The fire department will arrive and cease the fire (if you have one of those fire jets then just have your sim turn it off before they leave).

4) Prepare for the missed calls, your sim’s telephone is officially fixed!

Too Many Tutorial Joes & Janes

Sims 2 Profile: Tutorial Joe

It's time to talk about a sim that comes with every Sims 2 game and the Sims 2 Lifetime Stories. Known for wearing an obnoxious orange sweater with a stripe through the center and not being able to remember a thing in his life, Tutorial Joe is one crazy sim. Don't believe me? See for yourself:

Name: Tutorial Joe Sim

Occupation: Professional Sims 2 Teacher

Known For: Standing around and doing nothing all day.

Likes: Staring at sculptures, doing nothing, talking to his neighbors that are clones of him and his wife, Mohawks

Dislikes: Fire, stupid kids who play the tutorial, people that make him do stupid things because they know that he will be forced to do them

Interesting Facts About Tutorial Joe: 

1) He doesn't do anything unless the player instructs him to do so. (except if you are playing as the third Tutorial Joe who lives in the blue house)

2) He doesn't have a crush on his wife Tutorial Jane for some reason.

3) In the second house he has no family tree.

4) His houses have no telephones, however he can catch on fire and die during the tutorial.

5) He never learned to walk or talk.

6) He has no skills and is extremely untalented, but hey he's still cool right?

7) If you make him wish in a wishing well he will wish for money. (probably because he is a fortune sim).
8) He can't have children unless you use the Tombstone of L & D Genetic Merger cheat.

What I Did to Tutorial Joe:

Since the tutorial lot is never saved Tutorial Joe can have a different crazy adventure every day. Here's what I did the first time I ever played as him (as written under Tutorial Joe's Sims wiki page by me): 

"In my game Tutorial Joe invited the entire neighborhood over to his house for a party (using the boolprop cheat). Little did I know that all the other tutorials lived in the neighborhood, so two more Tutorial Joes and Tutorial Janes came to Tutorial Joe's house. Tutorial Joe was tired of being lonely and not having a premade Tutorial Jane, so he decided to flirt with one of the Tutorial Janes. Tutorial Jane's husband caught her cheating and broke up with her. Unfortunately Tutorial Jane left the lot and Tutorial Joe couldn't marry her. Instead of being upset by this, Tutorial Joe decided to propose to himself. Tutorial Joe and the newly divorced Tutorial Joe got engaged, then married with the other Tutorial Joe DJing down the aisle. And that's when the plot got too disturbing for me to continue." ~ evilbradburb

Another time when I played as Tutorial Joe, I gave him and his wife crazy makeovers and rainbow mohawks (don't worry, I'll be posting a video of that later).

Stories About Tutorial Joe: None...yet.

Videos About Tutorial Joe:

There are three videos that I posted on YouTube featuring Tutorial Joe. Two of them are from the first time I played as him (as described on the Sims wiki), and other one is just Tutorial Joe doing a crossword puzzle. (GASP!)

To watch Tutorial Joe do a crossword puzzle click below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OER1bpynIPQ

To watch Tutorial Joe propose to himself click here:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bChep0N-nSU

To watch Tutorial Joe marry himself click here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJRhk02tV1Q

That's it for this entry. See you next time when I profile another crazy sim.

 AHHHHHHH!!!!!

Resurrecting Random Premades: Open for Business & Beyond

When it comes to resurrecting premade sims in Bluewater Village, Riverblossom Hills, Desiderata Valley and Belladonna Cove, you’ll be happy to know that every pre-deceased sim can be resurrected by just using the resurrect-o-nomitron. The only sim that requires the “move this grave” method is Olivia Riley, (wife of Timothy Riley who lives on the east side of Belladonna Cove, the neighborhood that comes with the Sims 2 Apartment Life expansion pack). Her grave is located at the Belladonna Cove Art Museum.

If you wish to resurrect her then simply have one of her family members travel to the Art Museum, click on her grave and move it. Then, have the Rileys return to their apartment, obtain a resurrect-o-nomitron and resurrect her. It’s as easy as that!

The Sims 2 Freetime expansion pack introduces a new way to resurrect pre-deceased sims, the genie. This is extremely helpful if you wish to resurrect a deceased young adult townie who didn’t die on a residential lot. (In fact, it is the only way to successfully resurrect a college student who died in a base neighborhood). In order to resurrect them however, the sim that makes the wish must know who they are (as in, they must have met them at least once in that particular sim’s lifetime). If they have met them, the option to resurrect that sim should appear when you click on the genie to make a wish. Then just select it and the deceased sim is now fully playable!

Belladonna Cove introduces yet another way to resurrect pre-deceased sims. If one of your sims is an extremely good witch they will be able to cast the spell Expello Mortis (assuming that they have all the correct reagents to do so). However, in order for this spell to work, it must be cast before the Grim Reaper takes the deceased sim to the afterlife, otherwise you will have no luck with it.

However, in my option, the best way to resurrect a pre-deceased sim is to just use the resurrect-o-nomitron. It’s really easy and you can use it as much as you want.

Next time I begin profiling random premade sims. First up is the infamous Tutorial Joe Sim. You know you don’t want to miss this!

Resurrecting the Tricous

It’s now time to resurrect the only premade dead sim family that comes with the Sims 2 Nightlife! Of course I’m talking about the Tricou family. Today we’ll be taking a step-by-step look at how you can resurrect Jon Smith Tricou and the rest of his crazy family using his six descendants.

1) First, in order for the descendants to be made in the first place, you must add a Downtown Lot to the neighborhood. To do this, click the “add downtown” button located on the top of your screen. (If you already have a downtown lot, it should say “Downtown Chooser”).

2) Next, you need to find one of Jon Smith Tricous six descendants. (Or at least get the name of one of them so you can make them selectable using the Tombstone of L & D cheat). If you have University, the easiest way to find one of them is to scroll through their pictures under the cap button. If you don’t have University, then you’re just going to have to wait until you run into one of them on a community lot or one of your teenagers brings one of them home from school. Here are what the descendants look like:

Since I have University, it’s pretty easy to get the name of one of the descendants. Here’s one now:

3) Now that we have a name for one of Jon’s descendants, we can use the Tombstone of L & D to make her controllable. To do this, press CTRL + SHIFT + C and type “boolprop testingcheatsenabled true” into the cheat box. Next enter some random lot (I’ll use the Beaker lot in this case) shift + click on one of the Beakers and select Spawn …Tombstone of L & D.

4) A tombstone should appear next to the selected sim. Now, click on the tombstone and select “Add Neighbor to Family.”

5) Keep scrolling through the names until you find the name of the descendant, (which in this case is Cadence). Click their name, they should now appear fully controllable on the lot.

6) Next obtain a Grim Reaper phone by using the “unlockCareerRewards” cheat that is described in Resurrecting Random Premades Parts 1 & 2. Have the descendant call the Grim Reaper and resurrect Jon Smith. After Jon Smith is resurrected have him call Grim Reaper to resurrect the rest of his family members. Since only eight sims can live on a lot at a time you may have to more some of his family members off of the lot to successfully resurrect all the Tricous.

And there you have it, another collection of premade sims resurrected. Isn’t this fun?

Next time we’ll be heading to Bluewater Village to resurrect pre-deceased sims that come with the third Sims 2 expansion pack, Open For Business. Don’t miss it!

Resurrecting Random Premades Part 3

It’s time to resurrect sims in Veronaville, a place known for being filled with Romeos:

(Okay so maybe I’m responsible for that, but I can’t help it! Romeo Monty is just so fun to clone!)

Anyway, Veronaville is home to many sims with the last names Monty and Capp, so there are a few people with those last names that you can legally resurrect in the game.

Since any sim that has character data (and a tombstone) can be resurrected, both of Romeo’s parents (Olivia Monty and Claudio Monty) can be revived using the Resurrect-o-Nomitron, a genie lamp (which comes with the Sims 2 Freetime) or a witch’s spell (which comes with the Sims 2 Apartment life).

All you need to do to resurrect Olive and Claudio is to enter the Monty lot (located on the right side of Veronaville) and obtain a Resurrect-o-Nomitron. Then have anyone on the lot that is related to them call the Grim Reaper and give him money to bring them back. If you have the Sims 2 Freetime and a relative of the Montys obtains a genie lamp, there should be an option to resurrect them when you click on the genie to make a wish after you have your sim rub the lamp. If you have a sim that is an infallibly good witch or warlock, you can have them cast a spell to resurrect Olivia or Claudio.

In terms of the Capps, there is only one Capp that can be resurrected in Veronaville legally: Contessa Capp, the wife of Consort Capp. She can be resurrected using all three of the methods that I described above.

Next time we are heading to expansion pack neighborhood number one: Downtown, where we will be resurrecting a whole family of Tricous. It’s gonna be great!

If you want to see more of the Romeo clones click the link below: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3T3Uiyo208c

If you want to see all of the Romeos going to school click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kglu4uKAEhw&feature=related