| HOW DO I DOWNLOAD AND USE THE ZIP FILES FROM YOUR SITE? First, click on the word "DOWNLOAD" or on the picture. The download will automatically start and ask you where on your computer you would like to save the zip file. It is unimportant where you save the zip as long as you can find it again. You can also cancel the download at this time if you change your mind. Second, once the zip file is saved on your computer, you will need to unzip it. I use Winzip to extract my zip files (the evaluation version of winzip is available from www.winzip.com). If you have Windows XP, you will be able to automatically unzip the file just by clicking on it. Once you have an associated program, click on the zip file and open it. HOW DO I GET THIS HOUSE/LOT IN MY GAME? Extract (or copy with XP) the house.iff file to: Maxis/TheSims/Userdata(# of the neighborhood you want the house in)/Houses folder. Whichever program you use should ask you if you want to replace the file that is already there, click yes to put the downloaded house in your game. WARNING: Once you copy over a lot, there is no way to "undo" that I know of to get back the house that was there before. (OK, I won't say how many lots I've accidently lost that way, in all my moving things around and copying and pasting.) That's it! You've done it! The next time you go to the neighborhood that matches the Userdata folder you put the house in, you will be able to select a family to buy it! Oh, and also the lot numbers refer directly to the addresses: house01.iff - house10.iff are from the original neighborhood house21.iff - house30.iff are the downtown lots house40.iff - house48.iff are vacation lots house50.iff-house80.iff are from Unleashed. If the house comes with any walls, roofs, or floor files, you will need to extract or copy those to the appropriate GameData folder too in order for the house to look like it does on this site. Read on.... HOW DO I GET THESE WALLS AND FLOORS INTO MY "BUILD: SECTION IN THE GAME? Download walls and floors by clicking on the picture of the wallpaper or floor that you want. (See the general instructions above for downloading and unzipping files.) Walls end in .wll and need to be extracted to: Maxis\TheSims\GameData\Walls Floors end in .flr and need to be extracted to: Maxis\The Sims\GameData\Floors That's it! The walls and floor will appear in your build menus and automatically on any houses that you've downloaded with them. HOW DO I DOWNLOAD ROOFS AND MAKE THEM AVAILABLE IN MY GAME? Downloading the roofs is a slightly different process. After clicking on the roof you want, you will be linked to a page with a very small picture of the roof tile. This picture is the .bmp file in the right size for the game. Just right click on the picture and choose "save picture as" and you should be given a choice of where you want the picture to be saved on your computer. If you want, you can save it directly to your Maxis/TheSims/GameData/Roofs folder and then the new roof will be available the next time you start the game. Of course, you can always save it anywhere you like on your computer and copy it to the Roofs folder later. HOW DO I GET OBJECTS IN MY GAME? Unzip the .iff files for objects into: Maxis/TheSims/Downloads NOTE: If you set up special folders within your downloads folder for objects and organize them, your game should load faster. This phenom seems to be most noticible if you have Vacation installed, but not Unleashed. MY GAME CRASHES EVERY TIME I.... Some things to try before reinstalling the whole game: First, try running The Sims File Cop which you can download from the official site. The File Cop has caught most of my game crashing problems. If that doesn't work and it happens everytime you click on an object or unpause the game, it is probably a "bad" object. Check this by going to another house before unpausing. If it's just one house, it could be a single object in that house and not the whole lot too. Try selling back the last few things you bought and see if that helps. If your game crashes when you click on one, you've found the culprit. You can try using a cheat code (press Crtl-Shift-C all at the same time to bring up the cheat window and then type in move_objects on). Pick it up the offending object and delete it. If your game crashes when you try to do this, move it directly out of your "downloads" folder, but make a note of the object's file name (the ".iff" name). You will get the "missing objects" error message when you go into the house. Sometimes this isn't a big deal and the missing and (now invisible) object can be picked up and deleted with the cheat code. Other times, you get a stuck object that you can't see, can't delete and can't put anything in front of etc. You can get around this by making a "good" object called the same thing as the old one - just make a copy one of your good downloads and rename the copy to match the name of your bad object. When you reload the game, the copied object will be called-up into your lot, then you can delete in normally by selling it back or using the cheat code again. If all else fails, you can always try to reinstalling. I make a copy of my entire "The Sims" Folder first and then I move back my GameData, Downloads and UserData folders for any neighborhoods I want to keep. HOW CAN MY SIMS AFFORD THIS HOUSE? Trick one: Make up your family and move them into the lot where the hosue will be first, then download and copy the house over the lot. The Sims will be there with all their starting cash (minus the cost of the original lot) Instant free house and furniture! Trick two: If its too late for that and you already put the house in the game, use the Rosebud Mortgage Company. Make up your family and buy a lot they can afford. Then use the cheat code - pull up the cheat window as described above Ctrl-Shift-C and type in "rosebud". Instant cash of 1000 simoleons. You can type ";!" to repeat the command over and over. So one cheat window looks something like this "rosebud;!;!;!;!;!;!;!;!;!". I copy and paste to give myself $100,000 or so at a time. Trick three: Do it the old fashioned way and earn it. Start sims off single and marry them together to instantly (well not instantly - it takes some work to get sims to marry) double your starting cash. Also, the medical career gets your sims off to a good start making money quickly and the hacker career path has large bonuses later that make it easier to buy big houses. MY SIMS WON'T GET IN THE TAXI/BUS TO GO DOWNTOWN/TO THE COMMUNITY LOTS ANYMORE!!! Set them by the curb so that they don't have time to forget about the taxi. If you get them into the bus or taxi once they seem to remember how to ride them and the problem seems to go away. |