The following information was collected from The SimWatch list-serve. See http://www.egroups.com/group/SimWatch for full details. No credit is given as to the contributor. No attempt is made to validate the accuracy of the information. This is a collection of Questions and Answers people sent in to the SimWatch list-serve. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Question: So my question is; how do I knock-out walls and wall sections ???? Answer 1: Hold down the CTRL key when the wall tool is onscreen and the cursor will turn to a wrecking ball, then click and drag over the offending walls, and they will disappear. Answer 2: select the wall tool and use it just like you would to put in walls, with one difference, hold the control key down while you do it. This is true for removing wallpaper, floor tiles, windows, and doors =) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Question: How do you move to a new house? From the neighborhood screen, just evict your family. That will give them the money "in the house" (networth I guess). Then just move them into a new house or plot as if you were creating a new family. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I can't get the Sims to work on NT4.0! You'll need to modify the shortcut to The Sims. Browse to the Program Files>Maxis>The Sims directory (or whatever directory you've installed the game to), right click on Sims.EXE and drag it to your desktop, and select "Create Shortcut(s) Here". Once you have the shortcut on your desktop, right-click on it and select Properties. In the 'Target' field it should say "C:\Program Files\Maxis\The Sims\Sims.exe" (or the path to whichever folder it's installed to). Add -nodx6 to the end of this line (make sure to include a space before the - ). Example: "C:\Program Files\Maxis\The Sims\Sims.exe" -nodx6 Click APPLY and then CLOSE. Double-click the modified shortcut to run the game. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What do those things mean when you start a game? * Reticulating Splines * Calibrating Personality Matrix ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- one of my kids wasn't going to school so they got sent to military school. Will I ever get her back again or is that it? :) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Is there a way that I can save the family I'm working on now >(including their money account), and get the original houses that were in >the neighborhood when i first installed the game, the new houses that I >downloaded have taken those houses, and I want the old ones back, I didn't >know the new ones would replace the old ones. So, could I save my family >on a zip disk or something, re-install the game, and put my family in the >new neighborhood?? There sure is..... move your CURRENT UserData to ANOTHER folder outside " The_Sims " folder.... BUT if you reinstall it, you ALSO get the Neighborhood you have NOW... Just follow the steps below and START again.... NOW you know what the game is about, and NOT to DL those houses lol ****** #1 ... DELETE the Game and reinstall it...... (use the control panel) #2 ... make a " CONTROL " Folder/Directory in your NEW " The_Sims " Folder, then COPY your CURRENT/UNUSED UserData folder into it.... #3 ... play the tutorial till Betty Newbie shows up (this ADDS another possible friend to the game) #4 ... play away till you want to RESTART FRESH, then just copy the UserData from the " CONTROL " folder back to " The_Sims " folder and overwrite the files DONE..... ****** if you like... you can store several UserData folders, just put each in its own folder IE; The_Sims\Control\U1 .... The_Sims\Control\U2 .... The_Sims\Control\U3 and so on...... ALL you need to remember is TO NEVER delete the " Control " UserData or you have to reinstall the game.... You can restore the deleted house by going to the Windows Recycle Bin and restoring the house file. A way to avoid this hassle is to change the number of the downloaded house file. For example, lets say you download a house file with the name house06 but there is already a house in that plot of land (6), you can rename the house file so it overwrites on an empty plot of land or if all the plots are full, make a backup folder just in case you want the original house back. Hope this helps... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What goes into the Texture folder? On the Homecrafter there is only two areas to create - walls and floors. Nothing goes there. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On the website for Blueprint , there is a quote of Will Wright saying something about a graphic programming system or something in which The Sims was created. Is he referring to UML? Or did they create some kind UML clone specifically for The Sims? As a programmer (although a young one) I'm interested in what he's talking about. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- why does it take so long to make friends? Just get them to talk, kiss and hug loads and loads and eventually one will propose to the other. It only took me two days to get two of my Sims to marry! Make sure the person moving into your house gets on with anyone else living there aswell! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Can i play mp3's with stereo if i can... how? to play mp3's with the sterio you must movie the mp3's you want to play into the music folder and then the folder for the type of music I don't remeber where the folders are exactly but there somewhere in the sims folder ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Is there a way i can PROVE that I didnt use cheats on my game? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Can you buy another house? I have a couple in a house who are doing very > well and they have got quite a lot of money. I was wondering if it was > possible to buy the mansion on the other side of the river? > Sure. Save the game, then go to the neighborhood screen. Evict the couple from their current house. (Some people suggest selling everything they own first, to increase their money.) Then go to the family screen, and move your couple into the house of your choice. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have a family which I have been using since I purchased the game. It is a family of 'mother' and 'father' and one natural child and one adopted child. The 'mother' has maximum skill levels in everything. The 'father' has just about maximum skill levels in everything. I have managed to make the top of several career ladders. The most recent being the Acting career and have made it to Superstar. This is my favorite because you only work 10 - 3 and earn 1400 simolians/day. The peculiar thing that happened was that the 'father' was elected to be a Congressman and start a new career track in Politics. This was not by choice, just peculiar. Has anyone else experienced this? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You may get this question from users on your site: My Sims are coughing and sneezing a lot. Or how can I cure them? The answer is: When Sims get sick, they need lots of rest and hot liquids. Keep their energy bars really high. They'll get better in a few days. You might need to take a sick day off from work. It's also a good idea to keep sick Sims away from healthy ones, or they might infect them. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- There is an urn just > sitting in my kitchen, does it eventually turn to a > tombstone by itself or is there something I have to > do to it? You have to move it outside for it to turn into a tombstone. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > I have a question, I created a man and woman. The first day I have them do > nothing but flirt, talk, and tickle and they fall in love. Why can't they get > married? I take it that your people already live in the same house. In The Sims, marriage is really nothing more than one sim moving in together and taking the family name of the house. The only difference between the "propose" option and the "ask to move in" option is that when somebody just moves in, you don't get to see the wedding animation. Since your couple already lives together and has the same last name, technically they are already "married." You can only ask somebody to marry you if they live in another house. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I had an off day after remodeling my house and didn't have enough money to pay my gardener. So, he quit... Now, when I try toi rehire him again, it says I have been blacklisted and to water my own plants. UGH...this could take me days to do! Does anyone know how long this "blacklisting" lasts and is there anyway I can get him to come back? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Talking of military school, can anybody tell an obviously dumb person like me the *real* usefulness of children? I adopted two but all they seem to do is constantly flood the bathroom, eat everything and generally get in everybody's way doing stuff they're not supposed to. They don't really make that many friends (only Cassandra, who already was one, duh) as mentioned in the manual, and the $100 they occasionally bring in for good grades doesn't seem to make up for having to build a second bathroom because they're taking three baths per day each. To me, they don't seem like an "integral part of gameplay" as the manual says, more like the single most annoying thing about the entire game. Any big thing I missed about them? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > does anyone know how often you can take off work before being fired? As far as I know, there's no other restrictions. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- How can I control my visitors? You can't control them directly but you can have one of your Sims ask them to leave. If you are doing something like soaking in the hot-tub or playing chess, you can ask them to join. You can also greet them. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I had an off day after remodeling my house and didn't have enough money to pay my gardener. So, he quit... Now, when I try to rehire him again, it says I have been blacklisted and to water my own plants. How do I get off the black-list? Blacklisting happens when you don't pay your bill. This can happen with the maid also. It doesn't last forever though, so just keep checking the phone. Sooner or later you will be able to hire a gardner again ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Why do I get weird phone calls that says stuff "They're coming for you", "the end is coming" or "The number 6 will be very important to you in the next 48 hours". Do any of these calls have any meaning or importance? This is to simulate real life prank calls and telemarketers that wake you up at 9:30 to tell you useless stuff. How many times have you run from the shower to answer the phone? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- How many points does a sims relationship with another sim have to be before they are considered a family friend? 50 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Why won't the phones work in the new house I built? You have to have people to call before the phones will work. If you already have a maid and gardener, they won't show up on the phone. Pizza and Repairman will though. Friends will show up when they come to your house, so be sure there are other people in your neighborhood. Also be sure that everyone in your neighborhood has a phone, or they can't call you/answer your calls. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What happens to children who are orphaned? The only way they can survive is by eating pizza (every kids dream!) but as far as I know there's no way to move him into another household or add members into his household. No answer to this question yet. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Once in a while my Gardner and Maid will stop working (Not necessarily at the same time). My plants will die and garbage will pile up. How do I fix this? Fire them and hire a new Gardner and/or Maid. Not all workers are hard-working. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Why have kid? Because you get a 10% discount on your bills! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- How can I get my Sims to change clothes? Buy a dresser. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- How do I import a family? You need to move the *.fam files to the 'import' folder (under the UserData folder), and then when you run the Sims, it will ask if you want to import them. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Can you move a tombstone or urn, like a piece of furniture, or does it stay where the Sim dies and you have to use the move_object cheat? Yes, you can move it in buy mode .. as well as sell them for like $4 if you want. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Why did Maxis take out the code to change the time with the patch? I heard that it was because it was creating too many errors, but i personally have Well think about the potential problems. Say it's 8 am and the carpool arrives, you then set the time back to 7am. An hour goes by and guess what - the carpool is due to arrive but the car is already there! Oops big problem! There are lots of things in the Sims based on time in that way that could cause the game to crash. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What is a floating house? People build a house, and then after the second floor is built they remove the walls and floors of the first floor. Thus, there is nothing under the house, and it becomes a floating house. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: When designing a home, what gives it a good layout and what doesn't? Answer: When laying out a Sim house, make sure they have clear, wide paths so that every object is available to the Sims, and 2 Sims can pass each other, rather than getting stuck because the path is only 1 tile wide. Make sure they have straight paths from objects that relate to each other (ex: Sims don't like to have to go around the bathtub after going to the bathroom to wash their hands in the sink, and the kitchen works best when the layout is left-to-right refrigerator/empty counter/food processor/microwave/stove/empty counter/coffee which makes the Sims perform preparing & serving meals work in a straight line from beginning to end without doubling back). Sims like light, so the more windows and lights, the better. After experimenting, I've found the best place for the bathroom is in the middle of the house, accessible from every room. A good way of determining room score is to get the moosehead from the Maxis site and hang it on the wall. If the room score of the room it is hanging in is getting low, its antlers will droop. Room score will drop considerably if there are dirty dishes, puddles, garbage, old newspapers or dead flowers and plants, so clean up and water those plants! The yard is considered a room, so keep it clean as well. Trees and shrubs have an advantage over flowers in that they don't have to be watered. Q:Can your Sim ever buy a car? Answer: No -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Is it possible to move a house to a different lot or take a house I downloaded and put it on a different lot than it was intended for? Sure, just change the # on the file. Just know that depending on the house and the lot, it may not come out looking quite right and in some cases you can really mess up your sidewalks and roads. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Is there a way to have more than one neighborhood? Copy your UserData folder to a safe place then you can safely bull doze the houses and start over. Then when you want to go back to the first neighborhood you simply exchange the saved UserData folder for the UserData folder you've been using in the Sims folder. I have created 5 neighborhood this way, and given each UserData folder it's only folder named specifically for it. (ie, Kristen's Neighborhood, Kevin's Neighborhood .. etc etc) So it makes for easy switching. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- How do you put MP3 music in to The Sims? There are several areas that you can add music to. Look in ..\The Sims\Music and you'll see: \Modes \Build \Buy \Nhood \NhoodUS \Stations \Classica \Country \Latin \Rock You can put MP3s in all of these directories. The ones under modes are played when you switch to the appropriate mode and the ones under stations are played when you play that station on the stereos in the game. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I've been having a problem with some of my downloaded wallpapers, and I would like to know if anyone else has had this problem and knows how to fix it. Yep, we know the problem as most of us have been thru it. Maxis only allows us to put a certain amount of wall and floor files in the game (unlimited skins). So when you exceed that amount, the files won't stay put. This is the one thing about this game that really ticks me off. Here is what Maxis says on their web site: There is a limit to the number of custom walls and floors that you can have in a neighborhood. The limit for custom walls is 90. The limit for custom floors is 63. All custom walls are stored in \Maxis\TheSims\Gamedata\Walls. All custom floors are stored in \Maxis\TheSims\GameData\Floors. If you have more custom walls or floors than the aforementioned limits, you need to move some of them to a different directory on your hard drive (or delete them). If your custom walls are disappearing, go to \Maxis\TheSims\Gamedata\Walls and move enough wall files to a different folder on your hard drive (outside of the \Walls directory) to get you under the 90 custom wall limit. If your custom floors are disappearing, go to \Maxis\TheSims\Gamedata\Floors and move enough floors to a different folder on your hard drive (outside of the \Floors directory) to get you under the 63 custom floor limit. If you want to move specific custom walls or floors but are having trouble knowing which ones to move, you will have to load them into HomeCrafter in order to preview them. You can download HomeCrafter from www.thesims.com. Once you have downloaded HomeCrafter, start it up, click on the floor or wall button (depending upon which type you want to preview), then click on the Load an Image button and find the file you want to preview. Write down the filename of the wall or floor so you know which file needs to be moved. Now exit Home Crafter and move that file. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Why do some Sims get out of bed slowly while other get up quickly? The more active thier personality, the faster they get out of bed. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Where can my kids get toys? The kids get those things out of the toybox. Buy them a toybox and tell them to go over and play with it, and they'll open it up and pull out a toy... I've seen a doll, a car and a plane before. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have two neighbors and my Sims relationship for both is at 100% but she is in love with one and not the other. Why is that? For a relationship to turn into love, you have to build it up by doing the romantic actions -- back rub, flirt, hug and kiss -- not just talk, joke, entertain etc. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Why is it that whenever I build an interior room with no windows, the lights stop working after a while? You have to change the light bulbs. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Why would I want to make Family Friends? What do I gain? Family friends are necessary to advance in all of the career tracks. To reach the top of the career tracks, you need anywhere from 8 friends (military track) to 17 friends (politics track). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- How do I get offered a baby? First and foremost, the 2 adults have to be male & female and living together. Same-sex couples can never have a baby, they can only adopt. Second, keep kissing and eventually you will be asked "Do you want to have a baby?". There is a 1 in 5 chance when they kiss passionately (and I stress passionately), you will get that question. Passionate kissing is the key. They have to be moving their hands all over each other for it to be considered passionate (you should even see some buttocks-grabbing). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What the heck is reticulating splines? Reticulating splines was a process from Sim city by which points in space can be randomly generated using a fractal algorithm to generate game play randomization tables which insert chaos into the game. Animation architects ported it to the sims and it is used in randomizing terrain, personalities, baby occurrence, and a lot of hidden variables. It is also used to randomize the idles. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------