The Sims 2 TV Clip Randomiser

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This batch file aims to work around a problem I have found with how the game chooses which TV clip to play when a Sim first zaps to a channel in a game session.

The issue is very similar to the infamous "first-born syndrome", where the babies of two Sim parents would always look the same if The Sims 2 was restarted in between births, but unlike that one, the TV clip algorithm is untouched, therefore not fixed, by LazyDuchess' RPC Launcher (which you should check out anyway!).

I have previously attempted to find the root cause of this problem myself, but I have never learned Assembly and am therefore quite stumped.
So until someone jumps to the task, feel free to use this workaround.

So what's the deal with TV clips?
You can actually observe this behaviour even if you don't use custom TV clip replacements at all. The issue exists in an unmodded game.
Let any Sim watch any channel. If it's the first time that a Sim watched this channel in your current game session, you will always see the same clip first, and only then do the clips start to vary:
TV channelThe first clip you seeIts internal name
Sim Broadcasting Network (SBN)Usual sitcom bickering in a castletv_network_sitcom
The Yummy ChannelA cooking competitiontv_food_contest
KidzTubeRobots invade SimCitytv_kids_robot
SimStation DanceChilling at a pool in Strangetowntv_mvid_poolside
SimStation Sports (University EP)A rugby matchfootball1

While TV clips may just be background noise in an unmodded game, if you add custom TV clips like I did, you certainly want to see them. Sims don't watch TV a lot in normal gameplay, therefore you won't see much variety because of this randomiser bug. Constantly seeing the same two or three clips over and over gets old and is really annoying.

What does the batch do, exactly?
If the batch is placed in a valid location (see below), you can enter "ok" to let it rename all movie files to random numerical values between 0 and 32767. Whatever movie is first in this new order is then played first when a Sim tunes to that TV channel.
Yes, it does not fix the problem itself, but if you run the script each time after closing the game (or before restarting it), you will see much more variety in your custom clips - and may even experience some surprises in the default game clips should you choose to randomise those, too!

Where does the batch go?
You can put the batch in multiple valid directories.
  • To randomise custom TV clips, within your Documents Sims 2 directory, drop it into the Movies folder. Do not go deeper than that or the script will display an error.
  • To randomise the default TV clips:
    - Putting it into the base game folder > TSData > Res > Movies randomises the clips of SBN, the Yummy Channel, KidzTube and SimStation Dance, as well as the base game commercials.
    - Putting it into the University folder > TSData > Res > Movies randomises the clips of SimStation Sports.
    - Putting it into the Pets folder > TSData > Res > Movies randomises the Pets commercials.
    - Putting it into the Seasons folder > TSData > Res > Movies randomises the Seasons commercials.

For convenience, it's advised to create a shortcut to the batch and put it on your Desktop.

Operating system compatibility
This batch can only be used on Windows 7 or newer, because of the use of the TIMEOUT command to close the batch window after a few seconds.
Due to the nature of how the script protects itself from renaming itself (to prevent shortcuts from breaking), it also won't function properly on Mac or Linux.
I hope you'll enjoy your newfound fun with custom TV clips!
Happy Simming!
~ LimeyYoshi
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