What kind of business are you running? A brothel? XD

Just a sandwich shop. Must've slipped some aphrodisiac ingredients in there.

That's a feature:

Note that it will start various processes that you may not want, like weather or aging of objects. I use this often to walk around a lot to try new things, but rarely save the result. It works only once or a few times if I save. Two occasions where I used it was where I started fireplaces and set intersection on a door to allow it to close.

I found something, not exactly while playing it... more like while digging through game files as I like doing.

I believe I discovered an unused song not even The Cutting Room Floor knows about... or I'm way too young to know where it perhaps was used after all.

Embedded within the base game's Splash.package is a second splash song you - to my best knowledge - never hear in the actual game. It's a loop of exactly 1:00 minutes and features vocals just like Lemon Jelly's "Sim Time Sim Place" remix that was featured in CAS and the splash screen of Nightlife.

Personally I think it's pretty rad, a lot more lively than the actual Sims 2 base game splash song. (University's loading screen music is still the top pick for me though!)



EDIT: Turns out it's actually just the Credits song. Why it's in Splash.package though is beyond me. Thanks for the heads-up, everyone!

Would be cool if they played random music. Any music that is not the current EP would seem brand new. Someone posted a mod that dynamically alters game files in the installation directory to achieve this. But that seems like a dangerous approach for a little flavor.

I like how you can add any of the localized pop songs like Suburbia and get them to play on the radio channels in en-US.

It can actually be heard in-game! If you open the options mode (the ... button) and instead of exiting, click the plumbob (or if your game is only a few early EPs, the Maxis logo). The song plays when you're reading the credits.

I love that, don't think I've heard it before!


D'oh, well I must have heard it in-game then, I've definitely read the credits! But admittedly not for a while...

Great find anyway, LimeyYoshi!

@topp
Ah, so that’s why I didn’t recognise it, and that explains why it’s not on TCRF :D
I intentionally worded it in a careful way because I thought other people may know more about the song.
I should really check the credits out. Thanks for the heads-up.

I've got the mod you mean, and have used it for a while, but I have recently switched it to the RPC plugin that got released so I don't need a separate .exe for the purpose, and this RPC plugin also has the advantage of making a backup of the original Splash.package for you so then you can go back seamlessly. I do not think there is any major danger in this. Tools like Scriptorium or CEP do way more changes to the game installation than the loading screen/music randomiser does, anyway.

How can I listen to the music in the Splash.package files for EPs/SPs other than my current highest one?

Until late last summer my highest EP/SP was SP4 Celebration! (which came with Double Deluxe), so the music I heard while the game was loading (until I selected a neighbourhood to play) was I believe the music from the Splash.package for that EP. As I heard it every time I started the game, I came to love it as it reminded me of the fun I was about to have when I met up with my Sims. (It was really my favourite Sims music.) However last year I bought and installed the SP5 H&M Fashion Stuff Pack, so I now get the music that comes with that SP. It's OK but I liked the old music better.

If I open C:\Program Files (x86)\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Double Deluxe\SP4\TSData\Res\Sound\Splash.package in SimPE, and extract the "mp3 or xa Sound File", will that give me a sound file (mp3?) that I can play outside the game and hear my old favourite Sims music again?

Most radios are in Mp3 format. But the splash is in XA. On Windows, you can play it in libavcodec based players such as Media Player Classic Homecinema. Most platforms have a ffmpeg player of some sort. The sound is also looped and ends abruptly.

Thanks. I extracted the sound file in SimPE, but it gave it a .mp3 extension. When I open this in Windows, it opens it with Media Player, which says it's 25 seconds long (which sounds about right).
But when I hit the Play button nothing actually happens. This is presumably because it isn't really in mp3 format. I tried changing the extension to .xa, but Windows didn't recognise that at all. So I suppose I have to find something that will either actually play it, or convert it to something that I can play . . . ? I'd never even heard of XA format sound files before.

I suppose this isn't really all that important. But it would be nice to hear that music again.

A few quick googles indicate that VLC might be open able to it.

Media Player Classic Homecinema

Thanks!! That works. And I can again hear the music that started up my game for over ten years.

Smiting the landlord will make him go into motive failure and leave.

To paraphrase GLaDOS, "You know, deleting Splash.package just now taught me a valuable lesson. The best solution to a problem is usually the easiest one." (If you've never played Portal or Portal 2, don't google the original quote! Major spoilers for a fantastic game I heartily recommend to everyone.)

A simpler solution to opening SimPE and swapping/building the XA files is to simply swap the Splash.package files themselves, or IIRC just delete the newest EP's file in order to roll back to the one from the previous EP.

A cat can take an elevator while routing to a Sim to pounce them.

With moveobjects on, it's possible to grab the plumbob.

I wanted to take picture of the skill meter. It is normally too high up to be within the shot. I took it out of the head slots holder, and snapped into something that was lower, or put it on the ground.

If you delete the Plumbob object it will respawn, but if you fade it out to invisible, it will stay invisible.

If a teen comes home with her first A+ and nobody else is home, she'll stand by the bus stop cheering about it, go inside and put her homework down, and then cheer for herself as the parent would.

It's possible to use moveobjects to grab the newspaper that Sims pull out while using the toilet. It has all the usual options of a newspaper.

I discovered that Romantic Standards makes it very, very hard for family sims to fall in love if they're not the ones initiating. Like, extremely hard. Poor Cyd Roseland got rejected for his first kiss multiple times by Marylena Hamilton despite them having a great relationship and one bolt of chemistry, then eventually after she "gave in" he got rejected for woohoo multiple times as well despite both of them having 100 STR/LTR, a mutual crush (he was in love, she wasn't) and mutual wants for both woohoo and engagement. And while still on 100/100, no matter how many romantic interactions, Marylena Hamilton never did fall in love with Cyd Roseland. Cyd turned to Christy Raha (Zoe Samora, as she is called this time) and there were two bolts of chemistry, the kissing stage went faster but again, love was hard - and woohoo rejections as well. People who have played with Romantic Standards longer than me - how do you do it? I've only played sparingly with Belladonna Cove and it didn't seem that hard, but looking back I don't think I had experienced family sims yet. Marissa Cleveland is having an affair with Jessica Peterson, Kimberly Cordial married Armand deBateau, Samantha Cordial is in a committed relationship with Gabriel Green, and all of this happened without any of the problems I had today.

As a sidenote, I've (re)discovered just how much I love Downtown.

I've updated my Downloads folder recently, and I think I can sense that romancing is generally harder with family Sims too. Johnny just got rejected for car woohoo by Ophelia, both young adults and rekindled.

I think I was either playing with a way earlier version of Romantic Standards, or maybe a completely different Romantic Standards altogether (that is, by someone other than simler90, can't remember who).

EDIT: it's by midgethetree.