Whiterider's Sims 2 Tutorial -
Installing and Using Custom Majors
A major is what your Sims study at college in the University expansion pack - so yes, you do HAVE to have University for custom majors to work. Maxis gives us 11 of them - Psychology, Drama, Art, Philosophy, Biology, Economics, Literature, Mathematics, History, Physics and Political Science. A custom major is just a new one made by someone other than Maxis.
Making a custom major needs time to get to grips with, and I'll probably post a tutorial on how to do that some time soon! Until then, you only need to know about two things:
- First - GUIDs. You may know what these are or you may not, it doesn't matter. Every object, Sim, career, and yes, major in your game has one. And they are all different - at least they should be. If two things have the same GUID then one will overwrite the other. Don't worry - they'll still both be there, but you will only be able to see one of them. If you download a custom major, then go into your game and find that one of the original Maxis majors - the ones in the blue panel you get when you assign your Sim a major using the computer or phone - has turned into the major you downloaded, then it means the person who made the major made a mistake. Delete the file you downloaded and tell them what's happened.
- Second - Skills. Each semester of your Sim's college education requires them to learn a number of new skills right? Well depending on how deep into the major the creator gets, that can get screwed up. If you find that your Sim fulfils all the skill requirements, but their grade bar doesn't go high enough let them get an A*, just do the same - tell the creator!
And now... to download, install, and play!
Downloading and installing a custom major is just like downloading and installing clothes etc. If you need to find out how to do that, read the fantastic tutorial at MTS2!
Using a custom major is very simple, but you do have to install an extra item.
Once you've downloaded a major, as long as it is made properly, it's useless. It won't appear on the blue panel you get when you're assigning majors to your Sims.
So in order to use it, you need to download the wonderful FrikaC's Majors Made Easier hack. All this does is create a new object in your game. Just like the download page says, it will be a wall pennant in either the Misc. section or the Wall Hangings section of the Decorative category in buy mode, on any lot in a University neighbourhood. It costs 1. Buy it, put it on a wall, and click it. It will give you a list of all your custom majors, click on the one you want and the Sim you have selected will immediately switch to that major.
Happy Simming!
~Whiterider