Opening buildings!

[hella good 0]

here's the deal... ive read through these forums and ive done everything that has been said.

ive made a new folder in the plugins folder and put them in there, and ive then opened up sc4 and one of my cities.... but how on earth do i get the buildings into the city? ive looked all over the task bars and stuff and i cant find them anywhere! can someone help me please?

thanks...

[mayormot 4]

What kind of buildings? If they're civic buildings, like power plants or schools, they should be with the rest of the power plants and schools. Ditto for landmarks, parks, transportation, and such.

If they're just regular shops, houses, and/or industrial buildings, they probably just grow like the other Maxis buildings do, on the approriate zone when demand and desirability dictate. If the description said "growable," then this will be the case. If it's a "ploppable," most of the time lot-makers will put it in the landmarks menu.

Hope this helps, and welcome to Simtropolis!

[mrbisonm 1,620]

If the downloads are ploppables, they will show up in the specific menu designated for them, if they are growables, then you just have to wait patiently until the conditions in your cities are right for them to grow.

Just one other thing though: Downloads go into the MyDocuments/Simcity4/plugin folder wether you use subfolders or not, and they have be unzipped first! Zipfiles in that folder will not work.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Hi, and welcome to our conversation.

Downloads are tricky things.  They usually come as zip archives and have to be unzipped.

I usually do this away from the game in another structure called "My Downloads\Simtropolis".

I unpack each new zip into its own directory so I get, for example:

My Downloads

Simtropolis

Network Addon Module.zip    

<-- The downloaded file

Network Addon Module          

<-- The unpacked folder containing the files

Now, I am not going to illustrate this one, because it is large.  However, there is usually a file in there called README if it is text or INDEX if it is html.  You need to study this to make sure you have everything needed for this item.  Sometimes, you need to download some additional prop packs  that are used by several different lots.  if you miss one of these, you will get the new lot in your game as a "Brown paper package, tied up with string".

Yes, there is a lot to know about this.  However, keep going, it isn't all that hard.

EDIT:  One thing I do, is that when I have the folder, I move the zip file into it.  This makes things neater.

[hella good 0]

thanks guys

it all sounds very complicated! ill have a go at what you guys have suggested....

[hella good 0]

okay, ive tried but im confused!

i have to warn you guys that im not very computor literate...

when you say a zip file, does that mean it appears as a load of books as an icon?

because when i expand the file it has loads of others in it, one says landmark, one says growable, one says ploppable. and they all have two files in them - do i have to do something with those?

[sim1234 62]

The picture with a stack of books sounds like a RAR file to me which uses a different program to open them but that's fine as the files you mentioned inside it are the ones that have to go into the plugins folder. If you want a ploppable version of the building, put the ploppable file in your plugins folder. If you want the growable version put the growable version in the plugins folder and if you want the landmark put the landmark version in the plugins folder. If you want more than one version, that's fine.

[jackel.22 3]

plopable building are found in the landmarks menu and some times take a bit of searching for if you have loads of plugins.

here is what i do: download the file to desktop/ff (which is my defult folder for firefox downloads) then i open up the plugins folder in a seperate window. then i drag the ziped file to the plugins folder.

In the top left of the plugins window (when the file is highlighted) there should be something saying 'extract files' click that and extract them to sc4/plugins.

load up the game and they should be there

edit: if your using the simcity 4 start up manager make sure to select the plugin as one that you would like to load or it wont appear in the game.

[mrbisonm 1,620]

ok, you're not a computer genius, I can understand, I have been there vefore also.

Here is some clear and simple advice that you should do:

1. Downlod (register) the file to a folder that you can create in MyDocuments and call it : General downloads.

2. Click twice on that file (wether it's name ends with .zip or .rar, which are compressed files) Choose all the files in there and unzip them to the desktop.

3. Usually there is a readme file included, read it. It will give you important info on what you need for this lot to show up in your game properly and it's statistics.

4. All other files (except the readme and the pictures) you should transfer into the MyDocuments/Simcity4/Plugin folder.

It is as easy as this.

.......hope that helped, and Welcome to the community of Simtroplis.

mrbisonm

[collgab 10]

OMG, it is so simple u put the zip files in plugin folder, a folder with a ziper***, then u click it ans at the left hand corner in the folder task menu u click extract and gothrough the extracting process just click thourgh all the next and yes things and when it goes away u click out the "pop" up of the new folder it created and delete the original zip file so it does nto get to crowded in teh plugin folder and u r done, it si that simple just follow these instructions and u will be on your way

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

if you really are looking at the RAR symbol, it means you have the RAR program loaded on your machine.  Just right-click the file, and extract it using one of the options in the context menu.

I suggest you open RAR and spend a little time with its help system.  It really helps if you understand this application.  It is very, very powerful and useful.

[hella good 0]

thanks guys! woooo!!!!! ive done it! yay! thanks for all the help

[mrbisonm 1,620]

lol....glad that we could all help. Have a good time on Simtropolis now.