If you have played the Sims for a while, you might love your little virtual family.  Or you might find that you are ready to try out a new one.  Here are some helpful hints when downloading or trading Sims families.

First, you will want to go to the Neighborhood Screen, which is the main menu or starting point of the Sims.  You will see Sim Lane, which is the basic starting neighborhood.  In the neighborhood, there are ten lots that can hold a home.  Scrolling over the lot will tell you whether or not a lot is already being occupied.  A new family is free to move into a house that is not already being used by another family.

If you decide to download a new family for The Sims Exchange, you must take note of what address you are moving them into.  If a previous family is already living there, they will be evicted and their house will be bulldozed.  If you want this to happen, that is your choice, but if want to make sure your first family remains in residence you need to put the new family into a vacant lot.  Once you have downloaded the new family, when you se the Neighborhood screen again you will be asked if you want to import them to their new address.

Instead of downloading a totally new family, you may want to take advantage of the ability to exchange a family offline with a friend.  You have the ability to easily exchange families, houses, objects, character skins, and even floors and walls.

If your family is pretty basic and does not have something that you have created such as floors, skins, or downloaded objects, it is very easy to move them since there is only one file that needs to be exchanged.  First, you will need to go to the UserData\Import directory.  You should see a .FAM file for every family in your neighborhood.  This file contains the information that you need to import a family into The Sims.  You will need to copy this file to the new UserData\Import directory.  If you would like, it is possible to run the game in the background at the same time.  Once the file is in the Import directory, you Neighborhood screen will show a dialog box asking if you would like to import them.  Remember, use care in selecting the new Lot to put them in, as if you go over an existing Family the existing Family will be evicted.

It is a little more difficult to move a family that already has items that you have created such as floors, skins, or downloaded objects, but not impossible.  There may just be other files that are needed in order to transfer all of the information.  You will need to do everything mentioned above in order to get the Family loaded.  For Skins and Bodies (which are listed as .cmx, .skn, and/or .bmp files) you must download all of the files into the GameData\Skins directory.  Walls (which are .wll files) have to be put into the GameData\Walls directory.  Floors (which are .flr files) must go into the GameData\Floors directory.  Any objects that Maxis created for download will automatically download itself into the correct location.

You can also use this feature as a cheat to create a personalized neighborhood.  First get your family exactly how you want them.  Then just take the .Fam file for your family and make multiple copies with incremented file numbers in the .Fam file of the UserData\Import folder. Download them, and you have a whole neighborhood of “clones” for your original family to interact with and marry.

Enjoy your new family and their adventures!

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Tags: Sims Families

Give us your rating of this article below!

Trackback URI | Comments RSS