"While this is true to an extent....": Agreed. It isn`t quite that simple, but it is a large chunk of overhead that is usually profitable to eliminate when possible.

I`m refering to the attidude of the people there, as reported here. I am strongly convinced I would not enjoy a visit. As for the bugfixes, that`s why I download every one when I come across a *DIRECT* link to the file itself. Alas, I have found few such as yet.

No, neither.

Oh, I'm so sorry! I was almost POSITIVE I got it from MTS or MATY, because I almost never download hacks from other sites. After reading the description, I believe it IS the right Visitor Controller. I think I only thought it was from MTS is because there is a visitor controller here, but it doesn't do the same thing - it actually controls the visitors.

Ah well, thanks for trying.

Although I do find the visitor controller very useful for neighborhoods with a theme, aka, "wizards" "island" or whatever, so I just set it to "townies banned". I couldn't be bothered at all to read through the stuff for the clean templates, so that is what I use.

Oh, and the MATY attitude? I've seen some of the discussions there - some of them stay serious, but most of them seem to end up in a flaming session. I only go there to download critical mods.

I'm glad to see I'm not the only person who finds the people on MATY off-putting. I lurk there - only posted there once, a couple years ago, when I borked a game file. Someone there gave me advice and helped me, which I was grateful for, but I generally avoid posting there because I don't want to get snarked at.

If you want to get MATY stuff while avoiding the MATY-ans,

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/ffs/

will provide you the directory of all downloadable hacks from site (choose appropriate subfolder for your latest expansion pack - AL if you have Apartment Life.)

I only lurk at MATY I'm not even registered there just so I won't ask a question for fear of ridicule and banishment. Still they have great fixes and hacks and I'm very appreciative of them sharing, not that they want to hear that. I'm pretty sure I got referred there for the antivacations hack because one Sim learned that damn sea chantey and it spread like an evil virus. Once I discovered all the other little fixes that were there I was hooked.

I think all my hacks are from MATY, couldn't play the game without them.
(and yeah a lot of the members have a rotten attitude, *cough*menopause*cough*)

Thanks for the link, Julieryc. As for game version, I have it all, except for Store Edition [Bleah! MTS is better! **AND** free!] and Happy Holliday Stuff, and my Profile is up-to-date in that regard. ...and jooxis, the "menopause" theory doesn`t hold water for the *male* members over there.

I thought I would take the advice here and download the cleaned stuff from MATY. However, I have a question. So, I tried to register there. They ask two stupid questions. And, after searching the net (because they didn't like my Monty Python answer to the swallows question) and answering correctly, I get a message saying I look like a spammer and need to be more of a brain muffin. What the...? (sigh) So, I did the most intelligent thing and came to MTS2 to ask my question. I am hoping someone here can answer it for it.

I deleted ALL of my neighborhoods. Their empty neighborhoods require you to have neighborhood folders. I don't want any hoods except for my custom one. But, I don't want all the townies in my game (I HATE TOWNIES). So, what should I do with the neighborhood files so I don't get townies and strays?

And, is there any way to keep the gypsy from giving NPC characters as dates? I want my simmies marrying simmies I have created or that were born in game. And it's a waste of time (and simoleans) to keep paying for blind dates.

Thanks.

You will need notownieregen and nostrayrespawn hacks from MATY. (They also told me that I looked spammer-like when attempting to register; registering with a non-gmail account worked, though I don't know if that was the reason why or not.) You will need to install these hacks before creating your new clean neighborhood.

For the gypsy thing, you need TwoJeffs Find-A-Mate Crystal Ball (I believe now available at Simbology, someone correct me if I'm wrong.) You can use the options on that to customize which age group, gender, and group (townies, NPCs, playables) the matchmaking pool picks from. (You can also set the crystal ball to ignore preexisting gender preferences and relationships, if you so choose.)

I am not sure what you mean about the complaint "their empty neighborhoods require you to have neighborhood folders." To play any neighborhood, you will need a neighborhood folder. And clean templates are installed to the installation directory (in the C://Program Files/EA Games directory, not the Downloads directory where your playable hoods go.)

In addition to the notownieregen and nostrayrespawn you will also need the antiredundancy hack. Those are the minimum but if you want to make your own dormies/townies for Uni you also need nodormieregen and nossrespawn (secret society).

All of these are available in the directory since you are playing with BV get them from the BV hack directory. You don't have to be registered to download the hacks either.

The antiredundancy is kind of crucial with BV, what it does is keeps the game from spawning more than one NPC per type. So instead of getting 5 social workers you only get one same goes for all the NPC's. Seems there is an issue with BV endlessly spawning multiple tour guides and unsavory charlatans.

I've very very happy with my cleaned up templates and new hood. It was a lot of work but it was really worth it.

Good luck

Thank you so much. Can you tell me how I need to go about making my own dormies/townies? How many should I create? I read a post where they created townies and moved them all into one house from the bin, then made them all townies. But nothing was said about how many.

I get very bored easily. And I have more fun creating than playing. The only neighborhood that ever kept me interested was my medieval one (a year and a half compared to a 2-3 months). So, I'm creating a new medieval neighborhood, and I want to do it right from the beginning.

I think you can make as many as you want, but the game generates about 30 townies if you make them with testingcheats (by mailbox).

BTW, about MATY. You don't need to register there in order to download hacks, clean templates or anything (as far as I know). They're all available for anyone. And if you don't want to face their attitude, just download the hacks or what ever you want and go enjoy your game. You don't need to read the forum if you don't want to. I have been lurking there over a year now, loaded alot of important hacks that I couldn't play without anymore and just recently registered there, if I ever needed to ask something concerning a hack or other stuff. But I don't like that kind of rude attitude either.

I don't like the atmosphere there either. Inge has been urging me over there for a couple of years, and I started hanging out there a bit more when Claeric was banned here because I honestly did like him and I missed him. (Although now that I've found Fuzzy Logic Dishwasher I'm not hanging out at MATY looking for Claeric anymore.) But I have occasionally posted there.

I didn't care about the attitude either way. People are people. I observe them and accept them for who they are. But when I tried to register, I had to put in the capital of Assyria and answer the question "What is the windspeed volicity of an unladen swallow?" My answer the first time was, of course, Monty Python's classic "European or African?" It wasn't accepted. So, I found the answer (11 meters per second) and put that in -- just to be told I look like a spammer. (sigh) It was rather frustrating, and I wasn't allowed to register.

This is sims we're talking about, not an education forum! Do you think my simmies care about Assyria or even swallows? They're too busy running kingdoms and making babies.

I appreciate all of the answers I can find here, though. And thank you so much for explaining about MATY for me.

The game seems to create about 30 and that's how many they suggest you create for empty templates. I do know that as far as dormies go you must create at least 30. If not the game will clone the dormies you do have so you end up seeing duplicate Sims when you visit a community lot.

I just went through this and the cloning thing happened to me. I just had to make more dormies and drop them into the townie pool then I stopped seeing the clones. I have a feeling that townies may be the same way.

As for instructions this is the link to the tutorial at MATY:

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/s...ic,10798.0.html

I will say that I used TwoJeffs SimBlender as my teleport device and it worked great. I also adjusted traits/skills/interests prior to making them a townie. When you create the dormies you must be in a residential lot as it says but the process is exactly the same. There is not an option that says "make into dormie" you just select "make into townie" and that works.

I know this is an older thread, just found it via Google, but I was wondering if someone could explain in further detail how to create your OWN dormies/townies from scratch? I'm 100% new to this, have never even tried to use any kind of Sim hack, but I hate the random game-generated townies that pop up everywhere and would love to make my own. Thanks in advance if anyone responds.

brittany, if you could explain what parts of the tutorial linked in Clashfan's post don't make sense to you, I'm sure someone here would be happy to help out.

Tutorial link: http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/s...ic,10798.0.html