Asherton, a neighborhood you can play with: The complete version

[Zazazu]

This offering has been permanently pulled due to bugs. Please see post #58 for world files if you would like to try to fix the bugs yourself (road triangles and issues with carpools).

Presenting early-stage Asherton:

And built-up Asherton:


It is a neighborhood with approximately 90 liveable lots, several small parks, a distinct office district, and a mix of tiny urban lots and potential mini-mansion plots. For ease of explanation, I have divided the map into zones. Zone A consists of small family homes set up for families with 1-4 spawn. Zone B is set mostly for childless couples, with a few homes holding 1-2 spawn. There is a special lot near the community pool that is staged as a retirement home with room for four couples in individual buildings (bedroom + bathroom) with a shared kitchen/dining/living/rec space. This zone also has several lots available for building. Zone C is set for small families with 1-2 spawn and holds the major office park. Zone D is for a mix of childless couples and families with 1-4 spawn, with a distinctly contemporary flair.

This neighborhood is better than Dragon Cay. The residential lots have actual addresses you can see in-game. There are no funky lots overlapping roads. Your sims can learn Kung Fu at the gym. They can add their own relics at the museum. They cannot climb mountains on their way to the pool. There are more huge-ass 20x20 lots and even a 30x30 for you insane people who like to waste space.

       

       
These are all houses designed by me. A handful are based on floorplans from Eplans, but then radically adapted. These houses were built specifically and for the first time for Asherton. Yeah, I basically hate building right now. While three or four are facades (no beds) the rest are fully furnished. Beds were planned to promote a stable population growth that should end in a neighborhood that will run well on the average player's machine. The magic number of beds is 75 aimed for spawn and 135 aimed for adults/elders. You should tap out at 210 and with NPCs should not exceed the magic 300 count that seems to bring about neighborhood slowdown for some users, including myself.

Requires: World Adventures, Riverview, and game patched up to at least 2.5.
Highly Recommended: The Insulator window and Mondernism windows from the Sims3Store. I tried to avoid using Store items but realized at the 11th hour that I had used these two. Neighborhood should function without them, but will look better with them.
CC Included:

• Half Wall by Flabaliki  http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=380720
• Immodest Pediment Recolors in Grey-Black-White by VoiceIHear http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=368872
• HugeLunatic's Colonial windows http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=371508
• Martine's CAW textures: WA_Pavement_Pattern.dds, WA_Rock.dds, WA_Rock_Dark.dds

http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=385025[/li][/list]

Known issues: There is a tiny bit of a graphical anomaly by the diner. It is almost completely hidden, and is much smaller than it originally was. Between it and another issue that took me three days before I gave up and just bulldozed the frakking lot, I don't care anymore. There are a few extremely slight lot edge buckles, but I found that all but two resolved graphically given a few seconds. If you have a bug to report, please provide the lot address.

Installation Instructions:
I AM A BROKEN LINK. Open .rar file. Install the Sims3Pack for the 'hood using the tool of your choice. My launcher still works for these. Take the "Build" folder in the .rar and place it in your */Mods/Packages/ file.
I AM A BROKEN LINK for those that might want to smush things around.

EDIT: 2/22/10 with built world files. Originals exists but I do not recommend using them and am not supporting them. If you have some oddities around the koi pond, please redownload.

[J. M. Pescado]

Needs a more pumpkin-oriented theme.

[Zazazu]

My apologies. I will be sure that the populated version includes a pumpkin-colored home.

[J. M. Pescado]

Ooh, make a pumpkin-colored home seperately so I can put it in Puddingland.

[TheSimsandwich]

Love how there's no plausible way to get on or off the island. No one can hear my sims' screams.

[J. M. Pescado]

The island could use something that looks like a seaport.

[Rainne]

I like it!  I'm downloading it as we speak.  Personally, I am impressed with anyone who can build a locale with that stupid CAW tool; it is apparently far more awesome than I, for I cannot work out how to do anything with it besides accidentally create gigantic mountains.

Edit: Question - after installing and poking at the hood a bit, I am curious where the "huge ass" lots are - the version I have got seems to be comprised entirely of tiny lots.  Not that this is a bad thing, as space constraints will definitely force me to get creative; I'm just curious.

[Zazazu]

Edit: Question - after installing and poking at the hood a bit, I am curious where the "huge ass" lots are - the version I have got seems to be comprised entirely of tiny lots.  Not that this is a bad thing, as space constraints will definitely force me to get creative; I'm just curious.

There are some medium-to-large ones surrounding the gym. Most of the lots around City Hall are at least 18x18 and one is a 30x30. There's a 20x32 lot against the office park, bordering the Bistro. There's a 23x23 and a 17x20 on the road to the Stadium on the Diner side (Saga Street). There also is a 21x17 across the street from the Community Garden. Last, there's a 20x20 on that little lane of land in between the hill that City Hall rests on and the Police Station.

I personally find it more of a challenge to build on larger lots, but I included a few for future Free Love families once mod capabilities allow my polygamous cult.

Love how there's no plausible way to get on or off the island. No one can hear my sims' screams.

The island could use something that looks like a seaport.

It's modeled after my last Sims2 'hood that I really loved, Abelline. Abelline had a CC train system that went through a mountain to the neighboring business district of Regina, which had a seaport. We don't have great seaport items right now, but I'm playing around with the idea of putting in a faux heliport. The airport we have in the game is just ridiculously huge.

[jezzer]

Love how there's no plausible way to get on or off the island. No one can hear my sims' screams.

I lol'd.

I'm far too lazy to give CAW a whirl (frankly, even recoloring something with the Create-a-Design tool is more creative than I care to be), so I really appreciate the industrious folks out there.  It looks great, and I can't wait to use it.

[Zazazu]

First house built on the smallest lot, in honor of Emma:
   
Two bed, one bath that will spawn one larvae with Awesomemod. Comes complete with a garden space. I'm building in the normal game and then saving to bin, because doing edit-in-game from CAW with a fully lotted 'hood results in a save process that could trigger epilepsy.

[brownlustgirl]

Fabulous! You have given me exactly what I want, small lots!! Will be trying this world out tonight.

[Trystiane]

I agree, I've been waiting for a small lot neighborhood...  my impatient inner-blueberry (who wants everything noowww) thanks you! 

[Lion]

First house built on the smallest lot

Which is ....x...?

[Jellohelicopter]

This looks wonderful! My favorite part is building homes so this is perfect for me.

I'm taking a break from the one I'm creating. The tool keeps blinking between before and after images of any areas I use the elevation tool on and its getting on my nerves.

[Zazazu]

First house built on the smallest lot

Which is ....x...?

10x11, in the block of five lots and the tiny park that consists of a fountain and a few benches. I have that block built up so far.

[ediblebodyparts]

I look forward to your populated version as I fail at making lots look nice. Just square boxy houses for me. I usually download houses, then customize them however I like, but your lots are too small to do that with. Thanks so much though!

[hencoll]

I absolutely love your neighborhood.   Small lots are one of the many things I missed from Sims 2.  I had a blast building a couple of houses on a 10 x 10 and a 12 x 12 lot.  I look forward to building more once I get my daughters off to school this morning.

[Zazazu]

I'm starting with the smalls, too. According to my averages so far, I should have the entirety built up in two weeks max. Unfortunately, I was sick yesterday until about 9pm and only got four lots done that day.

[ediblebodyparts]

You have inspired me to go back to CAW to see if I can make anything myself that looks half-way decent. So far I have a mountain-y island with a nice little cove, so we will see how it goes. It took me 5 hours yesterday to even get that far (I scrapped 3 others before settling on this one)

[Kaze]

Amazing neighborhood. I hated how the lots are so spaced out in the Sims 3 neighborhoods, it just did not look right to me. I've been playing with your unpopulated version for a day or two now, but I've noticed some work places are missing, such as the business one and science one I believe.

[Zazazu]

Science shares a lot with the military base. Business shares with Criminal. Both are the Riverview version of the buildings as they blended better with the terrain and other buildings (color reasons for Science, height for Business). Do you not have Riverview? I stated that Riverview is required for the neighborhood.

If you don't have Riverview, you can always just place them using moveobjects on so that they form this pattern:

...or however you like. I can't guarantee that other areas and objects won't be screwy without Riverview, though.

[Kaze]

Science shares a lot with the military base. Business shares with Criminal. Both are the Riverview version of the buildings as they blended better with the terrain and other buildings (color reasons for Science, height for Business). Do you not have Riverview? I stated that Riverview is required for the neighborhood.

If you don't have Riverview, you can always just place them using moveobjects on so that they form this pattern:

...or however you like. I can't guarantee that other areas and objects won't be screwy without Riverview, though.

Must be something wrong in my end. I do have Riverview installed, well at least I did. I went back to check and it isn't on the neighborhood selection list. The odd thing is that I was just playing on it a week ago. Might have been because of the patch, I'll go back and check what went wrong. But anyways, thanks.

[SimiParthenopaeus]

I noticed when I played, my fellow Asherton's would go to the diner but exiting the back they would have no pathway (just stand there at backdoor with footprints crossed out).

Going into Edit Town I deleted everything on the lot and replaced the diner more into the middle of lot. Hope this helps.

Aside from lots im not on looking like blue square holes, I love the small lots. All day today I've been getting creative with the limited space.

[Zazazu]

Just had that problem yesterday, too. It will be moved in the next version. I wasn't aware that sims exited the diner from the back.

[Kazoona]

There seems to be a routing problem with the Police Station. A Sim of mine could enter it just fine -  when he finished his shift and exited to go home, though, he got stuck in front of the door. I had to move the Police Station closer to (and a bit into) the hill behind it, then he finally went home. Other than that, a wonderul neighbourhood - love the small lots.