Because I've been living under a rock, I was unaware that the Legacy Edition had been published. Before I pull the trigger and set myself up for frustration, I had a few questions about it.

I've saved my old Neighborhood folder with all the Characters, Lots, and even the Storytelling folder, and I've saved all the custom content I downloaded lo these many years ago. Something tells me if I try to just plug these into an install of the Legacy Edition, I'll be looking at a bunch of broken lots if the thing starts at all. Perhaps I'm too pessimistic, but the Sims crashed hard at least three times back when I was first playing it, and I have no reason to think EA has made it work any better.

The custom content is relatively easily dealt with, but I'd say my real question is with the behavioral modification mods I have (e.g., "No Jealousy" and "No Aging"). If these are broken, I hope they've been updated to the new regime, as they are critical components of my peculiar style of play.

Then there is the InSimInator. Yes, I see that it is "no longer supported," but does it still work? Or has the Legacy edition broken it? The alternative, I see, is Sim Blender, and I'll go with that if it simplifies things, but I was using the InSimInator on every lot in my hood (and they are many. Many, many). If it's going to cause a problem, I need to know about it.

I note the list of "necessary mods" for installing and playing an old 'hood, but there is not really much explanation of what they do. I can think of some things that would be indispensable in restarting a 'hood: a mod that would keep the game from crashing just from hovering over a broken lot, one that would allow me to enter a broken lot and throw away any problem items, and in general a mod that will allow me to get into my 'hood again and fix any issues, probably by throwing stuff away. I anticipate it being a huge amount of work. Again, maybe I'm too pessimistic, but I doubt it.

A "how to set up your old 'hood in Sims Legacy with the minimum amount of pain" guide would be favorite, especially if it is text and not video. I'm an old man, I like text. Barring that, I guess I'll just wing it and come here every day to whine about stuff not working.

A note to the mods: I'm posting in this forum because for some reason I can't post in the General forum. If you want to move it, be my guest, but please don't kill it.

-- Mal

Most plain mods that worked with the UC or AL/M&G should still work with Legacy (at least in theory). If you're unsure, test out the mods in a newly generated game** with Legacy, and you'll know if they work or not.

(**If you test out stuff with a copy of an old neighborhood made with the UC or lower EPs, there could potentially be issues between the old savegame/Legacy, not between the mods/Legacy - so always test out in a clean version - meaning newly generated hood - before trying it in a previous save, just to be on the safe side.)

"No longer supported" usually just means the original creator isn't around any longer and therefore won't update the mods if there are any issues with it - most of the time, the mod still works fine. (I personally use the latest version of Insimenator - although I'm using the UC, not Legacy - but it works fine, and likely will for Legacy, too. After the latest version, I've not had any issues with it. Even got the "object" version to work with Castaways some years back, so it's quite versatile).

You probably will have issues with anything that touches the UI, IKEA, and other things that have changed with Legacy. They might still work, but probably need some adjustments.

If you previously had the IKEA pack installed, there's a chance you might experience crashes or other issues with your lots, though it's also possible the IKEA items will just be replaced with other items or just have disappeared from the lot (there are ways to get IKEA with Legacy, though. There are also ways to install Bodyshop, and to make programs like SimPE, Homecrafter and Clean Installer to work with Legacy, but it does seem to be a bit buggy. From what I've seen up until now, Legacy seems to be more troublesome than the UC and other versions of TS2, but for the most part manageable if you don't mind some tutorials and a bit of frustration).

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For setting up your game, I'd absolutely advice you to keep the backup safe while you're setting up, because there's a good chance you'll have to do a bit of trial and failure, and that you'll need to use the backup files several times.

First, make sure everything is set up properly and is running fine. Graphic Rules file, no pink-flashing, crashing, etc. If you have any larger mods (lighting mods, etc.) now is the time to test if those work. Make sure to backup everything you change (makes it easy to reset).

Then test CC/mods. Weed out anything that's causing problems (UI mods, etc.)

Then test your old hoods. If you have custom hoods (N004++) you can easily copy one over and test out if things work. If you don't get any crashes, errors or other problems (open lots, check if they work, play a bit), it's probably fine. If you do get errors or crashes, it could be a compatibility issue between Legacy and your older game.

If everything works fine, you can replace the other hoods (N001-3, E/F/G). Make sure to remove the folder, then copy/paste yours in. Don't let anything overwrite, or you're begging for trouble.

Try and avoid Legacy if you can, it still has bugs and causes issues with programs like Clean Installer.

It's the only version you can get now though, unless you got the UC or kept your discs.

Thanks for the replies, guys. Let me go a little deeper into the subject, here. The "Issues between Legacy and your old saves" makes me nervous.

My original install of TS 2, and the one which my N004 save comes from, was off the disks. I had the starter disk, and University, Nightlife, Open For Business, Seasons, and Freetime. I didn't buy any of the stuff packs or other money leeches EA put out, I only got expansions that made changes to the game I wanted. Those disks are long gone, lost in one of the several moves I've made in the last decade. On the bright side, Freetime is the penultimate EP before EA pulled the plug, so there (should) only be conflicts with changes Apartment Life created in the engine, right?

I see that Legacy has *all* the stuff, except the IKEA pack. So that's one question I have: presumably the expansions I didn't get can be turned off somehow, or if not, are they going to cause problems with the set of expansions I did have?

I didn't have a UI mod, but I did have Numenor's old lighting mod. But I suffered a crash in 2010 that I was still cleaning up after when EA pulled the plug in 2013, and that mod wasn't enabled at that point.

You mentioned "other things that have changed with Legacy," and I suppose that is the crux: what did Legacy change that might cause trouble with my old Hood? You mention Bodyshop and SimPE, two programs I used a *lot* when I was playing. I made a ton of custom content (mostly recolors of existing clothes and objects, to be sure, which ought to still be fine), and even uploaded some of it (possibly even some here, it's been so long I don't remember). You say Legacy has "issues with programs like Clean Installer," which is unfortunate, as I think I resorted to that a time or two after one of the (several) crashes I had back in the Day.

Sooner or later, of course, I'm just gonna have to bite the bullet and give it a shot, I'm just dithering and gibbering while I wait for my check to come so I can buy Legacy. I wish there were an alternative, I'd rather not use Steam on the front end, but GoG doesn't have it.

-- Mal

It's better to add packs than trying to remove or going backwards, so if you never had IKEA and didn't have any higher than FreeTime, I think your save would react similar to how it would if you installed a new EP - it would be fine, but you'd need to update a lot of your mods so they're AL/M&G compatible.

I think most of the Legacy changes are related to UI and how the game runs (is enabled for 4GB RAM similar to using the 4GB patch, some GraphicRules changes, updates to the UI to make it compatible with larger resolutions, filepaths are different, and so on). The contents looks to be roughly the same as the older versions.

There were a lot of bugs reported the first few months of Legacy, though - some have been fixed through patching, but not sure if that goes for everything.

For Clean Installer and SimPE, I think the main issues so far have been file paths, and making them recognize the game. Once you get through that hurdle, they should (in theory) work fine.

Bodyshop, here: https://modthesims.info/d/690428/bo...collection.html

Clean Installer: https://catandsusim.tumblr.com/post...fault-to-legacy

.SimPE can be found here, and you can read through the latest couple or so pages of the comments for tips on Legacy:
https://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=630456

Lol, I have 16 gb and a quad-processor laptap, way more power than is necessary to run this pig. Maybe too much.

I wonder which mods need to be updated. IIRC, the Mosaic Remove mod had to be updated just about every EP.

Another question entirely (idle interest): the game used to take about 15 minutes to boot up on my old system. Wonder how long it takes now.

-- Mal