Note: I used my VacationIsland PayPhone to repair my haunted lot, and this tutorial is written with that as the solution. I have no instructions on how to use Totally Sim Crazy 2's exe phones, so please follow any of their provided install instructions precisely if that object is your chosen repair.

Build/Buy Patch:

If you don’t have it already, I recommend that you get and install Daveh’s Build/Buy Patch located in Simslice’s Free section on the programs and patches page. This ingenious patch will allow you to access the build/buy mode while you have simmies on vacation at your haunted hotel or any other VacationIsland lot. I think he has them for all EPs. Please, follow Daveh’s install instructions for these! Once you have them installed, you will wonder how you ever got along without them.

VacationIsland PayPhone Repair:

After transferring the lot, you will either need my VacationIsland PayPhone to repair the lost payphone…or…if you would prefer, you could download Totally Sim Crazy 2's exe payphone replacements. I have not tested them and do not know how well they work, but they have replacement payphones for DownTown, MagicTown, StudioTown, and VacationIsland. You can download all of their exe payphones in their ‘The Sims 1’ > ”objects” > ’Hacked’ location. As always, please follow all provided installation instructions with any objects you download!

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The Objective

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This tutorial is intended for ‘The Sims 1’ users, and has not been tested with ‘The Sims 2’.

Download Val’s Haunted Overlook Hotel here!

First, an important note from the author:

Howdy! Howdy, to all of my fellow Sim Fanatics, and WELCOME to another one of my fun and yet daunting tutorials.

If you are anything like me, you will likely find this tutorial fun and exciting because anything that can add a new dimension to your Sims 1 game, is always something to look forward to!

Also, it should be a little scary, because whenever you manipulate ANY files inside a game, you risk messing the whole thing up and having to uninstall/reinstall the whole thing. No one wants to do that, so, please, be sure that you know what you are doing before you change anything…and keep in mind that if you should decide to use this tutorial in any way, you do so at your own risk! I am not responsible for anything that might go wrong with your game or your puter.

Keep in mind that you should ALWAYS back up your files!

Thanks, and have a happy day, ya’all!

--Val

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Download Val’s Haunted Overlook Hotel here!

What is the purpose of this tutorial?

Ya, you read that right! You can actually exchange any expansion lot for a home lot and vice versa! When I say expansion lot, I am referring to DownTown, VacationIsland, StudioTown, MagicTown, and the least exciting one…OldTown.

I decided to write this tutorial for those of you who are more adventurous, like me, who want to explore and maybe expand on this possibility.

However, it’s important that we note that the purpose of this tutorial is to help a fellow Sim Fanatic build and test a Haunted VacationIsland Lot. Why is this important? Because, for the purpose of this project the transfer is only going to be a temporary one…

Again, you ask “Why?” Well, because even though you can transfer one expansion lot from one part of the Sims to another, it’s not always advisable without a purpose. The reason for this is there are hidden markers on EVERY lot that make the lots behave in their usual manner.

For example, the Downtown, StudioTown, and VacationIsland, etc. all have invisible markers that allow for random pedestrians to come to the lot. This is great, if you want to have a downtown apartment type setting, BUT, none of these lots have the necessary markers that a residential lot needs to will allow the School bus to pick up the children or that would allow your working Sims to be picked up by the carpool.

Now, you say—“So, I have cheats to bypass those problems, What else can be affected?”

Among other things, your neighborhood view of the lots might look distorted…which some people might not be too fond of…Ya, this is only a minor inconvenience, if it can be called an inconvenience at all…But there are other functions that are naturally going to be effected by moving the lots around; so, unless you have the necessary hacks to overcome them… (YES there are some fabulous hacks)…then I don’t recommend you move the lots permanently.

Anyway, as I said the purpose of this Tutorial is to help another Sims Fanatic create her very own Haunted VacationIsland Inn. She had tried killing simmies… (the poor things) …on her VacationIsland lot to inhabit the popular vacation spot with ghosts…however, her victims just would not die!

So, what I am attempting to do is make a haunted VacationIsland Lot by first assigning a VacationIsland lot to a residential lot. Then I will create a family of doomed simmies for the purpose of creating ghosts to inhabit this wicked manor…

Once I have done what needs to be done, I plan on then RE-assigning the lot back to the VacationIsland lot…and testing the manor to see if the ill fated residents will now walk among the living…*eerie music plays*…

After we do this, I plan to test the VacationIsland lot, to see if the ghosts born in the residential lot survived into the move from residential to VacationIsland! Fortunate you, you get to come along with me on this exciting journey!

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Download Val’s Haunted Overlook Hotel here!

Note: OH, and I think it’s interesting to note, that the ghosts of my Overlook hotel haunt both floors…

Yes, indeed, they walk the halls of both the1st story and the 2^nd story, in search of any victims to spook their shoes off!

…And they sure do enjoy spooking the guests of the hotel…even waking them from their sleep just to give them a sudden fright!

What great fun, ya!

Download Val’s Haunted Overlook Hotel here!

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Success Story!

Update 11/23/2006 – As I was building this tutorial, I was conducting my experiment and found that my theory is indeed correct! I have successfully created a haunted VacationIsland lot! So, I thought I would post the update here, for anyone curious as to whether or not this tutorial is really worth reading!

Happy day, ya’all

--Val

Fig 1

Fig 2 – 2^nd story

Fig 3 – 1^st floor

Click on the Pictures to enlarge these examples!

Question:

Hey, Val, this looks like far too much work for me to go through to have a haunted hotel…can I just have yours?

Answer:

Yes! I have put together a nifty little lot page that features my Haunted Overlook Hotel! You may download the lot there!

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Chapter One

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The beginning!

Okay, now that all the formalities are finished, let’s build ourselves a haunted hotel!

Load up your Sims game!

Choose a neighborhood that you are not using, or one that doesn’t have any of your best/favorite lots or simmies there. For the purpose of this project, I’m using neighborhood 7, and I have chosen the empty lot I have located at 2 Sim Lane.

Fig 4

Click on the Picture to enlarge this example!

Note: Do NOT forget what neighborhood you are using and what lot number, because these will be the files you’re moving around later.

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Chapter Two:

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Note: If you choose a lot from another EP, you will need to get a replacement phone for that EP. I only made and tested one for VacationIsland, so you could try using one of Totally Sim Crazy 2's exe payphones. They have replacement payphones for DownTown, MagicTown, StudioTown, and VacationIsland.

I have not tested them and do not know how well they work, but since this is an experiment anyway, you could try them.

The choice!

Now that you have chosen your residential guinea pig lot, you now need to choose your expansion pack lot. Since I am trying to create a Haunted VacationIsland Hotel, it only makes sense for me to venture to VacationIsland and pick the perfect haunted vacation lot. That’s what we shall do now!

Head to your choice expansion screen in your Sims game, (DownTown, VacationIsland, MagicTown, StudioTown) and pick the lot you want to play with. I have chosen 42 Old Volcano Way located in the upper right corner of VacationIsland! It looks like the perfect place to build my very own Simland version of the infamous ‘Overlook Hotel’. (*giggle* Who knows where that came from, ya? *giggle*)

Fig 5

Click on the Picture to enlarge this example!

Note: Do NOT forget what lot number your expansion lot is assigned to, because this will be the file you will be moving later.

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Chapter Three:

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Note: Even if you already know how to back up a file, this section is still important to this project because it contains valuable information regarding the files and folders necessary to complete this mission..

The Backup!

Okay, time for backing up the files so that if you need to return them all to normal, it will be a simple and easy thing to do. Even if you feel confident that you don’t need to do this step, do it anyway!…Because you WILL need the original residential lot in a later step.

Question: Do you remember what neighborhood you chose to use? If not, go find out now, then come back to this step.

Question: WAIT! What if my opened Sims folder doesn’t look like the one in your example? What do I do?

Answer: You need to change your folder view. You will find a quick tutorial of how to do this at the bottom of this tutorial.

Note: To copy a file to a new location, simply right click on the file and drag it to the new location, then release your mouse button. This will release a new menu on which you need to locate and choose the option labled ‘Copy Here’. Don’t forget to do this with BOTH lots.

So, right now, minimize your Sims game! (You can do this by pressing the ‘Alt’ and ‘Tab’ keys on your keyboard simultaneously.)

Now, open your Sims main folder! If your Sims is installed in the default location, you will find that folder here.

C:\Program Files\Maxis\The Sims

If your Sims1 is NOT installed in the default location, our SFC FAQs page will tell you how to find it.

(Oh, and don’t worry. You can do this even though your Sims game is running! It won’t hurt a thing!)

Okay, now that we have our Sims main folder open, we want to locate our Neighborhood file that contains all of the lots we are wanting to work on. What we are looking for are folders that are located toward the lower part of the list. The neighborhood files are the ones that are named ‘UserData’.

Fig 6

Click on the Picture to enlarge this example!

The ‘UserData’ files are named according to each neighborhood they represent, with each having a number after its name to indicate which neighborhood’s lots it contains.

The ‘UserData’ folders are named according to each neighborhood they represent…each having a number after its name which indicates which neighborhood lots it contains. The only ‘UserData’ folder that does NOT have a number, is the representative of neighborhood 1. –( Note: You might not have this many UserData files if you don’t have all of the expansion packs. That’s okay, it’s not going to hurt anything!)

Neighborhood

‘UserData’	Neighborhood 1
‘UserData2’	Neighborhood 2
‘UserData3’	Neighborhood 3
‘UserData4’	Neighborhood 4
‘UserData5’	Neighborhood 5
‘UserData6’	Neighborhood 6
‘UserData7’	Neighborhood 7
‘UserData8’	Neighborhood 8

Okay, do you remember what neighborhood you chose? Good!

I chose neighborhood 7. So, what I have to do is look for the ‘UserData7’ folder, because that is the one that will contain ALL of the lots for neighborhood 7.

Okay, now that we have located our neighborhood file, we want to open it now, if you haven’t done so already.

Houses

Now, look for the file that is labeled ‘Houses’. This is the file that holds all of our lot files for our neighborhood! Open it now! (If your Sims is installed in the default location, you can use one of the links below to open the house folder for your neighborhood.)

Inside the ‘Houses’ folder you’re going to find dozens of house files named in succession, just like the ‘UserData’ files were…And just as in their case, each number after the ‘House’ name represents something important. In this case, it’s the lot number.

Okay, if you can remember which two lots you chose to switch, these are the files we are going to copy somewhere safe to back them up. In my case, I need to find ‘House2’ which is my chosen residential lot 2 Sim Lane…AND…I need to find ‘House42’ which is my chosen VacationIsland lot 42 Old Volcano Way.

Fig 7

Click on the Picture to enlarge this example.

Okay, when you have located your two lot files, copy them to your desktop, or someplace safe so you won’t lose them should this experiment go awry. In my case, I created a file on my desktop that is labeled ‘BackupLots’ and then I put a copy of both target lots inside.

F ig 8

Click on the Picture to enlarge this example!

If you followed these steps correctly then --Yay! Your two lot files are now safely backed up! Happy day, it’s time to move on to the next step!

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Chapter Four:

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When you’re ready, maximize the Sims game again, and lets move on to the next step!

The Switch!

Okay, my plan is to transfer the VacationIsland lot 42 to the residential lot 2. So, since my original residential lot 2 and VacationIsland Lot 42 are both safely tucked away inside my ‘BackupLots’ folder, I can now make the switch.

Okay, copy the expansion pack lot file to your desktop. In my case that is the ‘House42’ file.

Then change the copied file’s name to that of the residential lot you are switching it with. In my case that would be ‘House02’…Like this…

Fig 9

Click on the Picture to enlarge this example!

Now, move the newly copied and renamed expansion pack lot back into the folder. This will prompt a menu to confirm whether you want to replace the file or not…similar to this one…

Fig 10

Click on the Picture to enlarge this example!

If you have properly backed up the original file, then you may choose the ‘Yes’ option. Otherwise, click on the cancel button, go back up your lot, and then come back and redo this step.

If you followed these steps correctly, the Switch is now done! You may dance around or spin in your chair…go get a soda, and then lets go start our haunted experiment.

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Chapter Five:

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Victims

Cheat

The Panic!

Now, if you left the Sims game running, like I did, we are now ready to go back to the game. If you had shut down the Sims, then now would be a good time to load it.

Go back to the Sims …*panics*…OH NO! WHERE IS MY LOT! …*freak out*…

Okay, I’m just kidding! …*giggle*… Relax…

If you left your Sims game running, the transferred lot isn’t going to show up yet. We have to first leave the neighborhood and then come back to get the game to load it.

So, let’s just pop over to the downtown screen for no real reason really…just to get the game to load our new lot…as soon as the DownTown is loaded, let’s just hop right back to the neighborhood screen. When we return to the neighborhood screen the transferred lot will be there. So, let’s do that now…

Oh happy day, there it is!

Fig 1 1

Click on the Picture to enlarge this example!

*smile*…See? I told you there was nothing to panic about…!

Now it’s time to create a family to move into our haunted hotel. (…Well…they aren’t really a family are they? They’re victims…victims in an evil plot to build a bloody Inn…what are we doing? …*frowns*…this is awful…*giggle*…Oh…I don’t know if I can really do this…*choke*…Uhg…*choke*…This is harder than I thought it would be…*giggle*…)

Okay, well…if we are ever going to get anywhere, I gotta do this…

So, Since my haunted hotel is decidedly going to be based on Steven King’s world famous ‘Overlook Hotel’ from ‘The Shining’, I guess it only makes sense to create the original caretaker and his family as our Hotel’s first victims…the O’grady’s…*eerie music begins to play*… So, that’s what I’m going to do now…

Now that the Family/Victims are created, we need to move them into the Hotel, however, when you first create a family they only have 20,000 Simoleans to start with. That’s a problem, because the Hotel lot is far more expensive than that…So, we’re going to have to cheat!

This is how…Move your Victims into another lot, that cost less than 20,000 Simoleans. Now, use the following cheat code to raise your funds.

Press and ‘Ctrl’, ‘Shift’, ‘C’ on your keyboard…all simultaneously!
This will open a little teal colored text box that will allow you to enter a cheat code into the game. Type in the following cheat code exactly as shown.

rosebud; ;

Once you have entered the code, press and hold down the enter button. This will increase your Simolean funds as long as you are holding down the enter key. You can keep track of your funds by watching the funds in the bottom left menu of the game. (see example below)

Click on the Picture to enlarge this example!

Fig 12

When you have the necessary amount of funds to purchase your hotel, then simply backspace to erase the text, and hit ‘Enter’ key one last time to close the text box.
Now, save the game and then go to the neighborhood screen.
Now, evict your victim family from their current residence.
Finally, move your victim family into the hotel!

Okay…Now we gotta…*choke*…kill the poor-innocent-never-had-a-chance-to-sim, simmies…I don’t care how you do it…just do it…You sick and twisted freaks! …*giggle*…

Okay, I did the deed…it was horrible, but I kept telling myself that I’m doing it for Eggy…*giggle*…I love that name, by-the-way! Now that it’s done, we need to return the lot back to its original location. It’s time to move on to Step 6…The Return!

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Chapter Six:

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…The Return!

Okay, our hapless victims are laid beneath gravestones on the Overlook’s lawn after dying in a far less violent manner than those they represent…that is the O’grady family of the ‘Overlook Hotel’ from…*creepy music*…’The Shining’…

Okay…That done, it’s time to transfer the lots back to their original places.

Essentially, we need to reverse the process we did in step 4…the switch!

Take the altered residential lot (in my case ‘House02’) that was originally the VacationIsland lot and copy it to the desktop.

Rename the copied file back to its original name…In my case, ‘House42’.

Now, drop the newly named altered VacationIsland file back into the folder and choose ‘Yes’ on the confirmation menu when it pops up.

Fig 1 3

Click on the Picture to enlarge this example!

Now, we NEED to put the original residential lot, in my case ‘House02’, back where it was as well. So, grab it from whatever safe place you stashed it in and copy it back to the house folder. When the confirmation window asks if you want to replace the file, tell it ‘YES’!

Now…the files are all back where they began…only one is just a little bit different…*creepy music begins to play*…I think it’s time to move on to the final chapter of this tutorial—the Fix! …MUWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH-guulp-choke-gasp-ha-wheeeeeeze…er…cough…*giggle*…I think I got a little carried away…let’s fix this thing!

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Chapter Seven:

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Question: Wait a minute! What did I break and how do I fix it?

Answer: Well, we’ve broken the lot!

Question: If you knew this was going to break my game, then why did you make me do this tutorial?

Answer: Well, first of all, I didn’t make you do anything…you chose to do this tutorial on your own, even though I warned you that it could really mess up your game, so now you only have yourself to blame! *giggle*

Finally…The Fix!

Now that the lots are all back where they should be, it would be tempting to think that everything is right with the world and we’re done and now we can just sit back and play with our haunted hotel until we fall off our chairs laughing at the ghosts scaring guest all night long, ya! But we are not quite done yet.

And now, I can hear you thinking something like—“Other than building the hotel to look like the one in our nightmares, what else could we possibly do, Val?”

Well, to put it bluntly, the lot is now broken and we gotta fix it! But don’t worry, although it used to be a big deal, now it’s just a little bother that can be fixed with a download!

Let me explain…Remember that I mentioned earlier that all Sims Lots have markers that make it function in its intended way? Well, when we did our transfer of the lot from VacationIsland to the Residential neighborhood, we lost the payphones, because they only function on the VacationIsland lots. You might have seen the payphones vanish when you accessed the lot to kill your doomed family.

What this means is that, if left alone as it is, when you take your simmies to VacationIsland for their vacations, they won’t be able to go home. This is the problem we must fix before you play with it.

Replace the PayPhone

So, this is what I have done. I extracted the VacationIsland PayPhone from the Vacation EP. I then cloned it and recategorized it to be buyable in the home buy catalog as well as the VacationIsland catalog…for 1 Simolean…to make it easy to be found. It will be located in the electronics section of both catalogs.

Anyway, I tested the VacationIsland PayPhone while building this tutorial to make sure it would fix this problem, and it worked beautifully for me…hopefully it will work well for you too. The best way to use this phone repair is to access your haunted hotel BEFORE ever taking any simmies there on vacation and then purchase my VacationIsland Payphone and place it somewhere on the lot. Save the lot and then it should work fine for you without needing any more work.

You can download my VacationIsland Payphone here. Place it in your downloads folder just like you would any other download. If your Sims is installed in the default location then you will find that folder here.

C:\Program Files\Maxis\The Sims\Downloads

Now, If you forgot about fixing the phones and you already have your simmies on vacation, there is another way you can use my payphone to fix the problem and get your Simmies home…that is if you have Daveh’s Build/Buy Patches installed in your game like I suggested earlier…then you can just go to the catalog while you Simmies are on the VacationIsland lot, and let your simmies purchase the payphone. Then your problem is fixed and they can go home anytime. This is not permanent, however, so you will need to go back to the VacationIsland neighborhood screen, without your simmies, and put the PayPhone back on the lot and save the game.

After you have fixed your lot’s payphone, you’re done and you can play with it anytime!

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Other EP Lots

Now, if you are anything like me, you have to explore the possibilities in switching lots from the other EPs as well. (ie. StudioTown, MagicTown, Downtown, OldTown)

So, I made the necessary phone replacements for all of them as well! *smile* YAY! You can download them on my Payphone Replacement page, and install them the same way you did the VacationIsland PayPhone!

Hints and Tips

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Protecting your Haunted Lot:

If you would like to protect the haunted properties of your lot so that you can bulldoze it without losing your ghosts, simply use the ‘map_edit on’ cheat code to make the area where the tombstones lay uneditable. This will protect them, so that even when you use the bulldoze function, it will still leave the tombstone and their ghosts in place. Don’t forget to turn the cheat off.

Have a happy day, ya’all!

Questions and comments can be sent to Valzgr8 at hotmail dot com.

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Other Repairs:

There are other fixes for the lost payphones, but I have never used them and cannot attest to how well they work, but you can download them at Totally Sim Crazy 2. You will find all of their exe payphones in their ‘The Sims 1’ > ”objects” > ’Hacked’ location. They have them for DownTown, MagicTown, StudioTown, and VacationIsland.

Or if you would just rather put the lot back to the way it was before we ever started this project, then you can simply put the original file that you placed safely in a back up folder back into the houses folder for your particular neighborhood.

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