MTS2:Creator Guidelines/Majors/Sandbox

Majors

Creating a custom major involves a lot of writing and a fair amount of creativity. As such it's a shame to let all that effort go to waste - so it's important that you ensure your upload meets the following criteria for approval; otherwise you'll just end up depriving downloaders of what may be a brilliantly written custom major due to mere technical details

Quality

Theme : The subject matter of a custom major need not be within the realms of possibility. We have magic majors, hoodlum majors, majors on how to be a ninja... no sense of reality required. However, whatever theme you choose must make sense as a major. Making majors based around games, films, books, TV shows or celebrities is very popular - but it has to be done carefully. People, and sims, go to university to learn how to be or do something. They don't go to university to learn about a TV show or a celebrity. Using a TV show or a game world as a base is fine, but a sim studying your major should have some chance of learning something they might actually care about. The key is immersion - is anyone likely to create a sim who would want to follow this major? Someone has probably made a Buffy sim, they probably haven't made a sim who is Sarah Michelle Gellar's #1 fan. To illustrate, some acceptable and unacceptable class titles: Avada Kedavra! And Other Phrases You Should Rarely Use Advanced Mechanics: Smack It Wiv' Yer Spanner! Why Stargate + Black Hole = Do not Want Dumbledore Dies on Page 596! Is Paris Hilton Really Straight? The Hidden Message of the Fast Food Rockers Uniqueness and Grammar : Description, title, and classes must be new, unique, and inventive. They must also be double-checked for spelling and grammar. Clear All Languages : Make sure to hit "Clear All Languages" before you upload, or your file will not work properly with non-US English games! Overwriting : Unless your major is specifically intended to overwrite a Maxis major, it absolutely must have a registered custom GUID. Skill Requirements : If you use BCONs to alter skill requirements, test them thoroughly before you upload. Incorrectly modified BCONs can cause game crashes, so test them. Custom Icons : They should meet the standards laid out in this mini-tutorial - that is; be the roughly right colour (if it's a single-colour silhouette), NOT be a random photo, and have a transparent background. You may use an EA icon if it is appropriate; the main purpose of this requirement is to ensure that the UI looks neat when your major is in use.

Screenshots

Icon: You must include your major's icon, or a picture of it in-game.

Information

Title & Description
Give your upload a descriptive title and write a text description for your upload, describing what you're uploading. Your title and description must be in English or provide an English translation. If you are not a native English speaker, using Google Translate is okay. You can also ask for help writing your description in the Creator Feedback Forum.

Required Information

You must include in your post: Major title and description, and class names. If the major overwrites a Maxis major, you must state which major it overwrites. If you used BCONs to alter skill requirements, state which skills are focused on. The icon used for the major, as an attachment to the post. If you created your icon in a program which uses lurid pink to show transparency, put it on a white background; otherwise it just looks tacky. Majors require University. They are not basegame compatible. They do not require Nightlife, Seasons, or anything else. Tick the University box, and that's it!

Files

Zip, Rar, or 7z

To upload your file(s) to MTS, you will need to compress them into an archive file, which makes them smaller and allows you to include many files in one download. The archive file formats we currently accept are .zip, .rar, and .7z. For instructions on compressing your files into an archive, please see: Creator Guidelines: Creating Archive Files. Do not include multiple archives with the same contents - that is, please don't put your files in both a .zip as well as a .rar because some people only want .zip files. Choose one format. Do not double-compress your files... a .rar file inside another .rar file (or any other archive inside another) doesn't compress it anymore, and it makes it so we can't see the contents without downloading, and also just makes an extra step for the people downloading. The file size limit on MTS is 50 mb. If you exceed this limit you will need to split your archives. This should probably never come up except for large worlds for The Sims 3, or huge sets of smaller items.

Additional Stuff

• If your upload is rejected or marked as changes required and you're not sure why, ask in Creator Issues.

• If you're not sure whether your neighborhood is ready for uploading, use the Creator Feedback Forum to get feedback on it.