I need everyone to know that my parents are computer scientists, a lot of my friends are computer scientists, and I work with a lot of computer scientists.* I have been telling everyone who will listen to me about @spockthewok's patch. The fact that this is a 22-year-old game and someone not only 1. used it for dissertation-level research, 2. identified the source of an issue that hasn't been named in, again, 22 years, and 3. patched it in a language (C++) that spockthewok is self-professedly unfamiliar with (it's mentioned in the repo notes) is absolutely incredible.
My mom is one of the best programmers and software developers I've ever met** and she says a good programmer can program in any language, no matter how unfamiliar, if they think like a good programmer. @spockthewok is a damn good programmer.
I am amazed, I am humbled, I am playing my game pink soupless right now. To quote my brother, when I told him this, since he was one of the people who would listen***:
*I am not a computer scientist myself because I make poor financial decisions and I'm too impatient for debugging.
**I'm not just saying this because I'm her kid, the CEO of her company once wrote her a letter to thank her for saving his business during COVID.
***He still plays RuneScape Old School. This is the highest praise.
At my parents house for my mum's birthday and there was a shitty laptop they weren't using and I decided to see if I could install Linux and also Sims 2 on Linux for the hell of it and anyway, because I have now achieved one (1) success in Linux I am a GOD.
There's been some word going around that Livejournal will become inaccessible for a lot of us given the current situation of the world. (See: Reddit - English-language LiveJournal is apparently not long for this world, save your favorite old fics now!
With that said, I rushed out and created a Livejournal Importer! meaning that if you want to backup your stuff from livejournal, but wasn't looking forward to the amount of copy pasting, you no longer have to! I've automated this all for you! :)
Note: Do make sure it meets the TOU!
What about creators who are no longer around?
There is always the Deadsite repository for mods if you'd like to share some content (make sure to request the livejournal first if it's not there!!)
However, if you want to backup some useful stories or tutorials, feel free to make an account for this! Call it something along the lines of: "TS2 Livejournal Archive Team".
There are a couple ways to go around and have others help out:
Add Collaborators. This can be done on each post. It's not account-wise so that might be hard.
Ask me (Lyralei 👋🏻) on discord to change the ownership of the post(s) to that of the "archive" account, and I will gladly do it!
Reach out to the people who want to upload under said account. Just make sure to give the password of the shared account to people you seriously trust enough with it!! (Although, this goes without saying, never share your own password with anyone. Just in this instance for a group project, do it through a message please. Not publicly. And never use your own account's password for this! Go with a unique password instead.😉)
A couple of things you should do before sharing under an archive account:
Make sure that the creator hasn't been around for a long while.
Make sure the content is either a story, mod, tutorial or useful text post to be archived (random life updates and such won't be accepted).
Make sure to use the project feature! Make it something like: "Skell - Fortune & Romance" and post the posts under that project. This makes it easier for people to navigate!
Can I upload my own livejournal items myself?
Of course! If you don't have an account yet, feel free to create one and start uploading whatever you want to back-up! Whether you use the importer for it or not, that's all fine!
I just made a joke to a friend about how if I had a nickel for every lesbian country singer named Brandi/y I’d have two nickels (Brandi Carlile and Brandy Clark) and anyway I’m having some thoughts about Brandi Broke.
Did you accidentally make your fence too short, and now there's an ugly extra fence post in the way? Think you'll have to rebuild that whole section of fence to get rid of it? Worry not!
Simply attach another piece of fence to the post you want gone...
... and then manually remove it. The fence post will be removed as well.
Apologies if this is common knowledge, but I only figured it out recently and it's saved me a lot of building time/mild annoyance!
It works!! You don't even have to put the additional fence down - if you just act like it's there and remove a nonexistent intersecting fence piece, the post will also disappear. Thank you @simping-simmer!
In the process of trying this I also discovered something else:
If you place down the length of fence you want, then add an additional piece, then use the above method to delete the fence post without deleting any actual fence, and finally hit ctrl+z, you "undo" the last piece of real fence you placed, but without the end post. I don't know how "sticky" this is but it does survive saving & reloading the lot.
This might have certain aesthetic applications blended with objects off-grid (benches, archways, columns, etc). I haven't tested it but you may also be able to use it with the Lot Adjuster to make fences appear more seamless across lots. Niche but nifty!
The same trick for getting rid of fenceposts works on half-walls, and I found a useful application for it!
Usually when you place these particular half-walls, there is a significant overhang on the ends, and when placed one tile apart like this, it makes an already-narrow space feel even narrower. This doesn't impact Sim routing at all, but I didn't like how it looked, and luckily, using this technique, you can get rid of them (sometimes)!
Using the same technique as above, you place the half-walls you want; then place a continuing piece (in this case, both ends could use the same piece of wall); use the wall bulldozer (holding ctrl) as if you were deleting walls that intersected with the posts you want gone; press ctrl+z to undo the wall you placed; add other fences, if you would like.
At first, I thought this wouldn't work on corner walls, but it does, you just have to delete the posts before you add the other fences. The black fence in this example doesn't have a fencepost, but if you put down a second fence that does have fenceposts, you will be stuck with that fencepost on the corner.
However, you can use this to force the game to use the fence post of your choice when two fences meet.
Wallpapers successfully wrap around the edge of these naked half-walls. Very exciting!
This has been such an amazing and fun journey! We're beyond happy so many great artists could join us and turn this little idea into a beefy magazine! We want to extend our thanks to each and every contributor and we hope you had as much fun creating for the zine as we had seeing, reviewing and assembling everything. 💚
How can I read this zine?
We coded this cute online flip book (big thanks to npc_crow!) to really get the magazine experience, but you can also download the free pdf here!
But I want to actually hold it in my hands! Can I get a physical copy?
Same, dear reader, same!
We are still trying to find an optimal solution uniting quality and affordability, and that requires looooots of testing.
Our plan is to sell physical copies at non-profit aka production & shipment price, and per request to avoid out-of-pocket expenses by printing stock without knowing if it would sell entirely. We hope to be able to fulfill printing requests soon and will be sure to update you about that.
Until then, we hope you enjoy the digital version!
So I've been playing in my maxis match game again and trying to play parts of the game/incorporate mechanics that I haven't used in a long time because of playing mostly historical games.
One of those is private school and did you know that you can get the headmaster drunk? This game continues to amaze me.
"always back up your neighborhood before doing anything in simpe" has the same energy as "let stand in microwave for 1 minute" like we all know we do neither of those things
Hey, it's Seth! I know how frustrating TS1 can be (considering it's age and being the first game in the franchise), so I am here to introduce a list of personal must have mods and programs, which I always use whenever I re-install the game to make it more user-friendly. The list itself is quite short, actually, since it only consists of my personal gameplay choice mods. So there's no building objects, deco, skins and heads there.
MODS AND CC
This calendar will report the day of the month to your sims and -- and this is amazing -- even introduce a concept of days off. Sims should have about every 6th and 7th day off. - THE ABSOLUTE MUST HAVE. It's in the painting section and costs 15 simoleons. Works a bit wonky with children, but otherwise a very useful mod to have.
Call work/give interview job phone plugins to give your sim a day off. - I use those mostly when sims have to take care of the baby.
A family mod by Gothi_family_4ever. - another must have in my collection, introduces the familial relationships in game! No more inappropriate relationships between relatives. It's a 0 simoleon painting, which you can delete once you've done.
A hacked frigde mod by the same author. - allows your sims to put their food into the refrigirator, call the household members for the meal, and requires the usage of products (like meat and in-game vegetables) in order to cook a dish instead of insta-paying. You kinda have to build a grocery shop for your sims, so they could buy the required products, I prefer to install the stalls into the pre-existing farm shop in Old Town area. P.S DON'T FORGET TO READ THE INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE INSTALLING BEFORE DRAGGING ANY FILE. As much as I love this mod, I don't, for example, use their cereal add-on.
The Elixir ExpressiBuy Computer. - a computer that allows you to buy any in-game buyable product (like vacation gifts, grocery, tonics, etc etc) in stock. They won't magically appear overnight but would be brought by a special courier npc. It also allows your sim to research logic, creativity, culinary and mechanical skills. I'd also recommend diving further into their site, since they have a lot of cool and unique gameplay content as well!
MagiCo's Bookshelf of Dimensional Storage - the official Maxis item, that was in the 'Get Cool Stuff' section. Allows your sims to keep their magic coins and ingrediends in special bookshelf storage, I mostly use it so the kids could get the ingredients for their spells from the adults. It is in the Magic section, btw
The Magic Mirror - the only outright cheat object that I have in my possesion. This mirror refreshes your sims needs, builds skills, friends, stardom, etc. Saves headaches when you are not in the mood to fullfill your sims' mood, ha-ha.
PROGRAMS
SimEnchancer 3D - basically a program that allows you to change the basic sim's attributes, including their heads and bodytypes. If you are familiar with TS2's SimPE, you'd have the idea how it works. NOTE: if you have to run your TS1 game as an administrator, you'd have to open it up in the same vein as well. And don't forget to backup your UserData files when you are working with it, just in case!
The Sims Creator - the official Maxis program for players to create some basic skins content. The program is only suitable to work with head and skins textures and not the meshes! Likewise, if you have to open the game as an administrator, you'd have to do the same with that program.
NEIGHBORHOODS
This section for the fellow premade enjoyers out there, who mostly played TS2 before and decided to give the local premades a chance as well
Here you can download the original UserData 1 and 2 if you want to reset your neigborhoods as they were if you had already played the neighborhood before and want to start anew. The Sims Wiki also gives you an instruction for how to do so.
And here you can download the additional Maxis families like The Hatfield, The Maximus, The Mashuga, The Snooty, The Jones and that weird agent White House familes. For some reasons, some of them refused to function in my game, so I had to install the empty houses and recreate them by hand, using the SimEnchancer and Wikia to give them appropriate skills and careers.
OTHER
Sims 1 Alternative UI - refreshes your game by a margin. I really recomend this one!
Well, that's basically it! I hope, my list would help you as well!
It is with a very heavy heart, that Betsy and I have decided to close SimPearls next year. We are both getting too old and sick to carry on. Our hosting runs out in February and rather than pay £1,166 to renew for another 3 years we have decided to call it a day. If the group was still busy we might have considered it, but it's really too much money for the few loyal members and not fair to ask them for donations. It was a wonderful complete forum for nearly 10 years. It was one of the, (if not THE best) forums around.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank all our past and present staff, designers and loyal members for the time and content you have given to SimPearls over the years.
We will close late January, which hopefully will give everyone time to save what they want. We will be disabling registrations from today but will open the forum up for everyone to access any downloads/links they wish to save
Made it for myself, I might as well share. If there's something I've missed please let me know.
This list is being updated, Tumblr is being a pain and updates won't show up on re-blogs. Visit the original post to view the most current version.
Mirror: Dreamwidth.
Sims 2 - Lot Makeover Database [of Maxis Lots] [Note the Uploading Tutorial].
SkyBox/Horizons/Skylines Database.
Maxis Career Conversions TS1+3+4 to TS2 [Sorted by Game&EP - Under Downloads].
Fractured Moonlight's Stone Super Set Database [Creator Unknown, let me know if you know].
By Theme:
List of Maxis Lost & Found Objects Converted into Usable Items.
Stories to Sims 2 Conversion Database. [DW Backup]
TS1 to TS2 Conversion/Recreation Database.
TS1 to TS2 Catalog Conversions [Active, Includes OG Object Descriptions].
TS3 to TS2 Conversion Database [DW Backup].
TS3 to TS2 Traits Project Mod Tracking Sheet [Blog Ver.]
TS4 to TS2 CAS Conversion Archive [EA].
TS4 to TS2 CC Clothing Conversion Database [Custom - ts4 only?].
TS4 to TS2 Build/Buy Conversion Database [EA].
TS4 to TS2 CC Build & Buy Database [Custom].
The Sims spin-off games to the PC TS2 [&3+4].
TSM-to-TS2 Conversion Database [DW Backup].
Sims 2 Historical Finds [CAS&Objects] [Sorted by Era/Period].
Historical Sims 2 Wiki [New!].
Grunge Masterlist Project 2025.
List of Asian Sims 2 Sites With Working Downloads [As of 2017?].
CC Archives:
Sim Archive Project, at The Internet Archive [Introduction Post].
Sims Cave.
Sims Graveyard.
Simblr.cc - Dead-Site Repository.
Liquid Sims - Community Archives.
The Booty, at PSMBD.
Sims 2 Packrat, on Tumblr [Watch out for the recent SFS Hacking problem].
Ekrubynaffit (a.k.a bestbuild4sims) has re-uploaded a lot of archives of defunct creators. Albums with DL on her pinterest. Mainly build and buy mode, thanks a lot!
Resources:
CEP-Extras List, Huge Lunatic at Sims 2 Artists.
The Sims 2 Tutorials Database [Active] (Really needs a backup outside of Tumblr).
Several Lists of Maxis Resources for Modding,Pick'n'Mix Mods, own website, under Notes.
List of all Color Actions, With DL, ZeroDark/Graphic at GoS.
List of all WSO Actions, by Blue Heaven Sims, under Resources.
List of Hacks & Mods That Use Tokens, Bulbizarre at MTS.
Giant List of Simlish Fonts - Collect ‘Em All!, by franzillasims.
Masterlists of Recolouring Templates; MTS [+Cloning] | Hafiseazle | ZreoDark [not a list but a tag].
Index of Effects Names & Definitions [+ Guide], by AmmarAskar at GitHub.
Update notes are under the cut:
Update: Custom Clothing Conversion db [4t2], by @brandinotbroke/ Hair db, by @krabbysims/ Sims 4t2 CAS Conversion Archive [EA], by @mdpthatsme/ CEP-Extras List, by @hugelunatic/ Lists of Maxis Resources for Modding, by @picknmixsims/ Sims 2 Tutorials db [Active], by @sims2tutorials/ Sim Archive Project at The Internet Archive, by various - see @simnostalgia.
Update 1: added EA ts2 store items at GoS/ Painting sizes db/ Tutorials db, by @sims2tutorials.
Update 2: GUID db Revival.
Update 3: believe it or not, there's more - Shoes db/ Sims 2. Functional Finds [sorted by function], by @sims2functionalfinds.
Update 4: Resource list: Clutter and decorative items, at @gardenofshadowssims.
Update 5: added archives section.
Update 6: added @ekrubynaffit's Pinterest Archive.
Update 7: Fixed TSM link, added Stories db/ Afro Hairstyles db, by @letomills/ SkyBox/Horizons/Skylines Database, by @simmergetic/ Grunge Masterlist Project 2025, by @pixeldolly/ and DW backup links (Everything that's exclusively on Tumblr/LJ should be backed somewhere else).
Update 8: List of Asian Sims 2 Sites With Working Downloads [as of 2017?] by @0201-sims.
Update 9: added Sims 2 Repository Finds [sorted into categories], by @sims2repositoryfinds.
Update 10: added Sims 2 Object db [Discontinued], because the more the better.
Update 11 Yet another (!): The Maxis Match Repository Project [CAS], by @whattheskell [how did i forget?]/ TS3 to TS2 Traits Project Mod Tracking Sheet, by Rowena Sims & @noodlebelli.
Update 11: Maxis Career Conversions TS1+3+4 to TS2 [Sorted by Game&EP - Under Downloads], by @sims2idea-lientebollemeis2i.
Update 12: HS I found another one: List of all Color Actions - Names, Creators, and Download Links. Maintained for over a decade by @zerographic at GoS :P
Update 13: separated by type & theme. added Sims 2 Historical Finds [CAS&Objects] [Sorted by Era/Period], by @ts2history.
Update 14: added to resources Trait GUID db, by @fireflowersims.
Update 15: I shit you not, there's more - Sims 2 Lot Makeover db [Maxis Lots], by @ts2lotmakeoverdb/ List of Hacks & Mods That Use Tokens, Bulbizarre at MTS/ TS1 Catalog Conversions [Active], by @kitteninthewindow/ WSO Action Masterlist, by Blue Heaven Sims under Resources.
Update 16: List of Maxis Lost & Found Objects Converted into Usable Items, @kirlicues.
Update 17: Sims 2 Lot db [Maxis ones emptied out], by @mikexx2 @mrsktrout @ts2lots.
Update 18: Historical Sims 2 Wiki [New!], by @theacmecatalogblog.
Update 19: under archives; Simblr.cc - Dead-Site Repository by @simblrcc-site. Jackpot!
Update 20: added Giant List of Simlish Fonts - Collect ‘Em All!, by @franzillasims.
Update 21 [can't believe there's more]: Masterlists of Recolouring Templates; MTS [+Cloning] | @hafiseazale | @zerographic [not a list but a tag].
Update 22(!): Index of Effects Names & Definitions [+ Guide], by AmmarAskar at GitHub.
Update 23: added Sims 2 - Wall Hanging Decor Recolors Database [New!], by @sims-for-semi
A mashup of Rented-Space's 3t2 Blouse Off Shoulder and 4t2 EP04 Dress Lace. I wanted to make this top a dress for a while, and I think it's coming along nicely!
I still only have two modes: making short dresses longer, or long dresses shorter 😅 This is the latter (Lucilla's 4t2 Dress Handkerchief)
I'm converting this one for the sleeves, so idk, if I'll convert it as it is? Tell me if you want it? (4t2 EP05 Tee Sheer)
I found another thing to separate! This one is from a crib by Simaddict99 (repo'd to the bg crib and changing table)
I think it would look cute with the 70's Laced Platforms you made pantless here or the Karin dress shoes here. I will also always advocate for Yuxi's cowboy boots to be added to anything.
I wasn’t actually going to make this, but MATY keeps going down when I need to direct someone to the original tutorial, so here’s another one as a backup.
Do you harbor a burning hatred of EAxis architecture? Have Apartment Life and like your lots to have ceilings? Want to add some objects from other EPs or cool CC to a hobby lot? Wish the hobby lots matched your neighborhood’s ~*~aesthetic~*~? Then this tutorial is for you!
Disclaimer: I copied 97% of this information from several posters on this thread at MATY. Without them we would all be sitting here looking sadly at our vanilla hobby lots.
You will need:
Freetime (duh)
SimPE
The Batbox, if you need to give a sim some hobby membership cards
At least one sim to visit the hobby lots before editing
