the absolute beginner's guide to modding your game
the game being as old as is, you'd think there are no such guides necessary, there are guides on mts2, the thing has its own wiki! but this post comes as a reaction to my rl friends. see, almost all of them have the game and often they have no clue about the following. :O if this bores you, just skip it. the CC I have now is different from when I made that resource post some time ago so the links will be somewhat different.
before everything else, make sure you have patched all your EPs. just saying.
oh, something else: regularly delete your cache files and from time to time the thumbnails folder. I only did this to keep the files small but later on I read it's even necessary to keep the game fast and to prevent corrupt chache files. where are those? My Documents/EA Games/Sims2 the cache files are the only ones outside any folder. and, surprisingly enough, the thumbnails folder is named "Thumbnails". that was hard, wasn't it? ^^
all your downloads go into the folder "Downloads". it is located under My Documents/EA Games/Sims2. inside you can create as many subfolders as you wish. try to create a system that helps you locate your downloads later on. files tend to come wthout description and are often namend something like djf8z45bchsst7e. utter keysmash. also I wish creators would stop naming their readme files "readme". I ended up deleting them all, because they are no help like that.
Mods: (I'll only link to stuff I currently use) Pescado's Director's Cut you download the one for the newest/highest EP, so if you stopped installing after Seasons, you click on seasons and so on. never use outdated hacks. check for updates occassionally. the director's cut includes a lot of hacks, most of them very useful or even necessary. just throw it all in your game and make sure it loads first when the game, well, loads. the game loads folders alphabetically, so starting it with aaa or ___ will do the trick. you can always remove hacks if you don't want or need them. but be careful. never ever remove creaturefixes for example. you'll find that the game is a lot easier to play with this in. and more fun. Personally I use it all with the exception of "bathroom uses you" because that one works faaaar to well and I was missing the sims fail. XD in addition to these I also use Zombie Apocalypse. because that's what zombies should do! (the required file (fight club) is included in the director's cut) (download form the hack directory, not this post because the directory gets updated more often I believe)
Here you can get famous mods like ACR or inteen. currently I only use the sim blender (this kinda replaced the inSIMenator after the inSIM debacle) and some same sex mods. on this site you'll often read "compatible with Pescado's this and that" but I wouldn't be too sure about that...
Mod the Sims2 you'll find a lot of stuff here, I use it especially for clothes, skin and eyes. I also got GunMods camera mod from there. I'd never play without. sadly I can't link you directly because I lost the link and I saved the rar. file to my external (useful because that one needs to be reinstalled everytime you install an new EP/SP/patch. this is also the only thing that goes into the "Cameras" folder instead of downloads.
Defaults: if you want the sims that come with original maxis skin/eyes to look better, you'll need to put in default files. they go into downloads like everything else, but make sure you know where to locate them. you can only have one file per default. example: you download one replacement for the vampire skin. if you put in another one, neither will work. other than that you can replace almost everything, from genie skin to the faces of the pollination tech that will father your alien babies and the ideal plantsim that will father your plantsim babies. some links to those I use at the moment (but there are so many more) alien eyes defaults currently I use izmir. Default alien skintones currently I use the blue one, green witches, plantsims and green aliens was too much green for me. Genie replacement Vampire replacement the vampire eyes are linked to the skintone. you cannot download another set of eyes and use those as default. this post has the skin with red eyes and without. you can combine vampire skin with contacts to change the eyes if you don't like them. my vampire contacts are located under lipstick XD (because vampires can't properly use masks so it has to go under makeup) my zombie default is from mts2 too, my default eyes as well. my default skintones are from selzisims. my face templates are by katuhttp://katu-sims.livejournal.com/tag/stuff+to+download
uuuuuhn. anymore questions? did I forget something? ask away.