More Awesome Than You!

Uhm, first of all, I recall a topic like this has existed, but after a lot of searching around I can't find it and am now not even sure anymore I found it on this board. Memory like a sieve and all that.

Anyway, just wondering what sort of stuff you put in your neighbourhood apart from houses? I mean things like parks, groceries, churches maybe...

Just trying to get some ideas for my own hood. So what do you have in YOUR neighbourhood?

The only thing I don't bother with is Grocery Stores as my sims all buy their food over the phone or pc. I have loads of different stuff in my hoods.

Such as what? ;)

In my medieval hood I have: a church (owned community lot, with ticket machine = church tax :P) a pond for swimming (community lot, no owner) made as a swimmable lake (disguised pool), a winter pond with an invisible skating rink (community lot, no owner), a fishing pond (community lot, no owner), owned businesses: a wagon reseller, an orchard, veggie fields, a mine, a gypsy camp, with a camp fire and a fishing pond and a spa, a beach. Home businesses: a pub/restaurant, barber, tailor, baker, butcher (sells ready made turkeys among other stuff), grocery/veggie store, a witch with a small potion store. In the planning: honey farm/store, toy store, book store, prison, flower store, furniture store, fish market, apothekary..
There will be more churches also, and parks, and restaurants - both home owned and community ones.

Well....
Downtown, I have a church, roller rink, ice skating rink (although I only use that in winter) community swimming pool, fishing park, kiddies park, pet park, park with a bandstand, snooker hall, amusement arcade, cinema, bowling alley, teen hangout, numerous restaurants and nightclubs, elders social club, singles bar, brothel, a 'love hotel', a couple of coffee shops, a couple of pet shops, a couple of clothing stores, a newsagents, a games and electronics store, a spa, a gym, a library and an internet cafe. Also-tons of owned businesses (in a sub-hood, not saying what they all are-I'd be here all day) and a bigfoot colony (in my main hood) Phew.

Wow :o Certainly inspiring, thank you!

No problem :D

In my MATY 'hood, there is a community centre with various "fun" activities (mah-jongg, massage tables, chess, pool tables); a park; all purpose shopping plaza (groceries, clothing, jewellery, electronics) with sauna ('cos after a hard day of shopping...); and a community beach (with axe throwing area and a stage for music jamming).

In my other 'hood, there is an all purpose shopping and recreation beach comm lot (it's a "young" 'hood and short of amenities).

Mainland (downtown) has:
park
nice large restaurant
Saish (small lofty restaurant and club)
Always in Season (diner with roller skating rink and arcade)
Super Shop-o-rama (all retail stuffs, in sections)

Queen's Cove (main 'hood) has:
convenience store
art store
brothel/bar
cemetary (unowned)
event park (unowned) (faire area)
fresh food market (faire area)
junk shop/tent (faire area)

College in the Glen (uni) has:
park
coffee shop w/ postcards & reading area

I have planned to add a petting zoo of sorts to the faire section of Queen's Cove, just need a pet-obsessed sim. Also a little craft tent selling quilts, dreamcatchers, and the like. I'm going to do a poker parlour/bar either as an in-home biz or off-site.

Okay, let's see..

Downtown Has:

Owned Restaurants:
Shmarna's House of Ribs:
Chili Witch! Dine in and Take-Out
Rooster Gold's Chicken (Dine-in and Take-out)


Owned Venues:
Orthagonal Lanes (Bowling Alley)
Fundamental Frequencies Recording Studio (Acutally a Karaoke venue)
Blue Noise (Dance Club and Restaurant)
Blueshift Skates (Skate Park)
Body By Blue (Gym with Sauna, Athletic Clothing Store, Dance Sphere, and  newly-added Tai Chi room)
Sparkling Blue Waters (Spa with Pool, Hot Tub,  Bar, and  Swimwear store)
Shooby Shack (Pool hall)

Owned Retail Stores:
Wheels & Deals (Car Dealership)
The Observatory (Skilling object store)
Porcelain Thrones (Bathroom Supply Store)
Game Slave (Game Store)
The Sartorial Society (Formal Clothing Store)
Culinary Cathedral (Kitchen Supply Store / Baked Goods store))
Pages Past (Bookstore)
Fairly Foodstuffs (Grocery / Fish / Prepared Fish Dish store)
Toytopia (Toy Store)
Faustian Biotech Pet Fabrication Facility (Pet Store)
The Fountainhead (Fountain store)

Owned Factories:
Food Factorial (Supports Chili Witch!, Rooster Gold's Chicken,  Culinary Cathedral, and Fairly Foodstuffs)
Toy Factorial (Supports Toytopia)
Flower Factorial (Supports  Just Flowers and More in Bluewater Village)
Fishermon's Wharf (Supports Fairly Foodstuffs, and yes, it's spelled correctly.)
Robo-Fac 1 (Supports the Machine Shop in Bluewater Village)

Owned Hair Salons:
Cut to the Quick (Hair salon and juice stand)

Unowned Community Lots.
Zeitstall Laboratories (Cowplant Elixir Supply Lot)
Produce Warehouse (Free produce lot)
First Simnational Bank Branch (Mostly scenery, Magazine store, Coffe bar, guitar)
Fulton's Fine Food (Steamship restaurant)

Other features:
Simhenge Park (http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/8132/snapshot0000000d5476bb4dz6.jpg)
Expansion-born Premade Family Ghetto (http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/1446/snapshot0000000d7476cb5ob2.jpg)
Mount Wrightmore (http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/3559/snapshot0000000d7476caabd2.jpg)

Pleasantview is mostly disorganzied. Its primary notable feature is  Gourmand Gardens, a free Community Garden.

 Bluewater village has only had slight cosmetic changes. Other than sparse dotting with Ridicudorms, most  of the universities are as installed.

I have:
One "ultimate shopping" lot containing everything a sim can possibly buy.
One "fun lot" intended for outings, but rarely used.
One "ultimate dating" with a restaurant, disco and every thinkable means of woohooing.
One park (mostly for taking pets to).
One graveyard for playables.
One graveyard for townies and pets.

And if I can be bothered to build and run them up to a decent level, I'll have one robot shop, one toy shop, one floral shop, one farm and one fishing place.
I also usually have three generic stores of various sizes, that can easily be turned into any kind of OFB outlet.

Oh yeah-I have graveyards too. I forgot about them as no-one has died in my hood yet :D

In my newest hood, I don't have any community lots yet, but I now have a lot of ideas from this thread. I did put time into decorating it, though. My best shot is of this river. It took me more effort to make than I thought it would. Enjoy.

(http://i139.photobucket.com/albums/q316/kutto2/maty%20intro/snapshot_0000000f_f4719968.jpg)

That is really very cool. I'm generally too lazy to do much decorating in the hood. The beach lots and vacation hoods have left me feeling a little more inspired.

Your river manages to look quite real and I love the use of the statue.

I'm about to outgrow mine. It's more of a cross between a graveyard and a mosoleum (sp?). The ground is paved and the pet graves are on shelving. It's a tiny 1x1 and is crammed to bursting. Haven't decided yet if I'm going to repeat it, steal a graveyard I formerly made from Urban Paradise, or build a new one.

I use this set (http://www.modthesims2.com/member/download.php?f=143&u=269354) of community and university buildings I made on a small terrain in one hood.

In others I set up a lot of small homes in one section and the larger homes in another, then in between the two I created a village with a grocer, city hall-type thing, restaurant, shopping center, recreation center, park, graveyard and bowling alley. 

In yet another hood I've recreated a little of the London area including Buckingham Palace, Sloane Square-type area, Hyde Park and St. James Park, then a little ways away I set up a row of council houses and then a farming area.  That was fun, but a LOT of work.

Great thread idea.  I could use some new inspiration too.

My main hood, Lakeside Heights, is an upscale suburban town.  Almost all of these I've built from scratch over the years.  There is a shopping mall, library, several themed restaurants including a jazz club, waterfront bistro, sports/billiards type restaurant/pub, coffee shop, movie theater, art gallery (showcasing art from one of my local sims), owned custom portrait shop, owned flower shop, ice rink/lodge, roller rink/club/bar, shopping plaza, metropark, public beach, public pool, public high school, cemetery, retirement village for the elders, sleazy by-the-hour motel, remodeled arcade from OFB, owned takeout and juice bar, owned clothing store/salon, owned fitness club, and owned wedding hall/resort.   

My downtown is the default downtown, renamed Lake City.  It is heavily remodeled, but still has some of the original restaurants and clubs.  There are a lot of downloaded lots, mostly restaurants, clubs, and bars.  A lot of the urban-themed stuff you'll find on MTS2, like little diners, parks, and kiosks.  I've made a community college area (thanks to "upgrade pre-uni sim" on the lot debugger where my poor and academically-challenged sims can earn their degrees.  There is a residence hall, parking lot, bookstore, and main hall.  My real estate mogul sim has his company headquarters downtown, but aside from that, most of the community lots are unowned.

My uni is Sim State University, also heavily remodeled.  I ditched the shops since they were too bulky and inefficient, and made my own smaller shops.  There is a pub, and a nightclub/restaurant. 

My Bluewater Village is a rural farming town.  There is a church, grocery store, owned farm and fresh fish shop, and very few leftover OFB community lots.  Mostly just small-town houses with lots of land. 

I have a lot more than I even realized until typing it all up, and I'm sure I've left some stuff out.  (I've been at this neighborhood for almost two years now.)  I've also started remodeling all of the vacation 'hoods too.  I just can't leave anything alone ;)

Great input in this thread! Got lots of ideas now, thanks  :-*

Notovny, I love the names you give your lots. ;D

Kutto, that's one awesome river. I'm duly impressed (and motivated to prettify my own hood).

I suck at neighborhood building because my machine is getting more than a bit dated and the load times kill me (and also I lack imagination).  So I always make one "mall lot" for my sole community lot; has a little bit of everything in terms of stores (no grocery) and things to do.  That way I only have to go to one place.  Due to reinstall issues, I haven't had a chance to play with the options opened in any EP past Uni, yet. 

wow, anything available for download? I just suck at building...

My main neighborhood is mostly residential with a few owned businesses on one commercial strip. There's also an unfinished graveyard. The only deaths have been in the main line of the legacy family, so those tombstones stayed on the lot. I'm about to have my first non-main-line deaths, so those will be moved to the graveyard, so I'll have to finish that.

For downtown, I've mostly done extensive remodeling of the existing businesses rather than building my own. I rearranged the default layout so that most of the businesses are all close together, making it actually look more like a downtown, in my opinion. I've got a few nightclubs I downloaded and added in (Merkabah from HolySimoly - careful it deforms the terrain, Gothika and PURE West from Cireking).

I've also done some extensive remodeling of Sim State.

I don't do much with the premade Maxis neighbourhoods (I have my main three combined into one). I pretty much just remodel the premade lots for functionality, do a bit of redecorating, and leave it at that. My custom themed 'hoods, however, are built from scratch. When building any sort of business lot, whether home or community, I try to include everything needed to keep a sim's motives up. So, for example, even the hair-salon has a TV or radio, coffee or espresso, and a BBQ grill or food served by the owner, especially if using the electrono ticket machine. That way, the customers will stick around longer, and thus generate more income (and loyalty stars) for the business. My sci-fi themed 'hood, named Asimovia, is the most developed, so that's the one I'll tell you about.

Community lots include:

The Saucer Club (danceclub that looks like a flying saucer - includes restaurant, bar, coffee, darts, billiards, and DJ booth)
Pet Planet (pet store)
Mystic Transmogrifications (combination salon, gym, and clothing store, where I use Christianlov's hacked clothing rack to change the default clothing of NPCs)
Richelieu's Rare Books (sells regular books from the bookshelves, but also some buyable single books and assorted oddities)
A few Qwik-E-Mart type places (more for neighbourhood deco than anything)
Cliffside Cemetery (high-tech looking cemetery on the edge of a cliff)
Beloved Friends Pet Cemetery (self explanatory)
Temple of the Metatron (actually a cemetery - features gigantic humanoid statuary)
Asimovia Community Centre (lake, swimming pool, barbecues, etc)
Campus Coffee (uni lot - original, I know)

Home business lots include:

Life Help (my favourite business - uses Squinge's autonomous career rewards and Pescado's comm-skilling hack, along with an electrono ticket machine, so that customers pay to build skills)
Greenleaf Farms (a farm and produce shop run by plantsims)
Krystalz Gallery (misspelling intentional - an 'artist' sells the Fire Krystalz by Oberkorn at MTS2, as well as assorted statuary)
The Play Palace (sort of an arcade meets opium den - bubble blowers and an electrono ticket machine figure prominently in this particular business)
Ground Zero Gallery (resident 'artist' sells paintings and sculptures from the Buy catalogue, because custom paintings don't sell for much and can't easily be restocked)
House of Geisha (these are not real geisha, as they run a brothel and gambling parlour)
Faktory Fitness (downtown lot - self explanatory)
Faktory Dance (downtown lot - nightclub with bar, DJ booth, and hot-tub)
Faktory Fun (downtown lot - bar, buffet, karaoke, bowling, billiards, and poker)

My fantasy/mediaeval 'hood has such things as an enchanted forest, a haunted wood (doubles as a cemetery), a potion shop, a brothel, a gypsy caravan, a few castles, some ruins, an antiquities market, a fairground, a few taverns/pubs/innes, and some other stuff that I can't remember.

this thread needs pics :)

Well, restocking custom paintings is a pain in the neck, to be sure, but they sell for anything you want to sell them for. If I can sell Eau de Brynne for 10K, you can sell a custom painting for anything you want.

Community lots, non-owned:

a bus stop, with a little convenience store, toilets, a photo booth and the cell phone/MP3 player thingy
a skilling lot with chess tables and several career rewards
a fishing facility
a town hall with a restaurant, a billard café and a boutique
a dating lot with restaurant, bar, disco, karaoke, hot tubs

All of these lots are in my lot bin and standard in a new neighborhood, more are added when I'm bored.

Community lots, owned (in previous 'hoods, also planned for the current):

a flower shop
a fish market
a veggie market
a candy shop (made with Paladin's candy machine)
a deli (sandwiches and salads - needs the veggie market)

and several overpriced pay-to-stay casinos / bars to burn cash.

As for the residential lots - I start with a residential area of eight starter homes (Pilgrim's Drive, near the bus stop). Sims that had worked their way up move to the more sophisticated areas. I have four of them: Baker Street (London town houses), Abundance Square (mansions and chalets), Ocean View Drive (beach villas - planned) and Bigwig Avenue (the mayor's residence).

I never did understand how you were able to mark pee for sale. :P

I have enjoyed following this thread, as I am fairly new to the idea of having anything much in the way of community lots.  Now that I have a new computer, a whole new world is opened up to me with a few seconds of loading time per lot instead of 20+ minutes.  I used to get distracted and come back to my game only to find that my sim had been on the community lot for a day or so with all their needs depleted.  ::)

I still mostly have community lots to sell crafted items and personal electronics.  I have always loved notovny's community lots, so I usually have them in my game if they fit in with the theme. 

In my Royal Kingdom (LOTR) neighborhood I have a prison/workhouse on a residential lot run by a Mrs. Crumplebottom clone that was kind of a fun idea.  If a lower-class citizen began picking on a royal or noble sim, I would sentence them to a round in the workhouse.  There they would serve out their sentence making toys, painting, cooking & cleaning.  Aragorn and Arwen run a home venue where they eat meals and spend time with their subjects.  They are short on help now other than hired services, but someday they will get a live-in servant or two from the local Peasantry spares to cook, clean, garden and be a nanny.  Now that I have BV, I have the neighborhood dwarves mine for treasure and sell what they dig up.

In Pleasantview I have one community dancing club/bar/boxing ring where I invite and influence fighting among the various classes of NPCs for my amusement.  For example, Karen Gast is the champion fighter in the Nanny Division, and Korey Jitmakusol is the champion of the Headmaster Division.  Customers gain stars watching the fights.

I have tried Zazazu's idea of a petting zoo in a Legacy when I had a sim that wanted to raise 20 kittens or puppies.  Since all guests want to do is play with pets anyway, I built a barn in the backyard and made them buy tickets to play with cats.  I thought someday I would try it again and download pets from MTS2 that look like kangaroos, zebras, etc.

I love notveryawesome's Life Skills business idea.  That's what I thought I would do for a vocational school.

I have a bunch of random freak-pets saved from MTS2 and my own creation for my apocalypse 'hood and found one for sale on the mainland in Queen's Cove. That was odd.

I'm really, really jealous of everyone's community lot names. Mine are bland. Seriously. Snack Shop, Paint me a Picture (originally I was going to have sims pay to paint on the easels and sell back their work, but couldn't get visitors to use the easels), Ridge Collectibles, and Ridge Market. Oh. And there's the cemetary. It's called "Cemetary" and its description is "Put your dead here." Blah.

It's an effect produced by Yellow Pee, which gave pee puddles their own puddle type, distinguishing them from ordinary, non-pee puddles. When OFB was added, Maxis decided to implement puddle non-sellability locally, meaning the change did not propagate to the seperate pee puddles, so pee could be marked for sale. I thought this was so hilarious that I left it.

Well now I know why there's a yellow pee hack.  I always thought it was a wee bit gross, but I may just have to try it out now.

It's less gross than sims subsequently splashing in it because they can't tell that it is pee. Also, 99% of the pee puddles will actually be produced by dogs and penguins. There should not normally be SIMS peeing on the floor. Except Brynne.

That's definitely another reason to try it.  So does this mean that when the nanny pees on the floor my toddlers won't go and splash in it? 

I mostly have small single-storey, multi-purpose community lots with 1 NPC that load fast because big laggy lots really irritate me.   I like to send sims on a multi-purpose outing to one lot rather than suffer the loading times from visiting a lot of different community lots.  I also hate large community lots because your sim always ends up hiking the entire length of the lot several times to get to his/her target sim.  So functionality is much higher up my list than artistic merit, though I do try to make them look reasonably attractive. 

The ones I use as standard are designed to look nice together on the hood screen; they all have a river and a willow tree or two.    They date back to base game and I've started adding to the set and updating existing lots.  A lot of activities are outdoors, which doesn't work quite as well since Seasons - another reason for remodelling a bit.

Health Spa with clothes, hottub & chess
farmers market with food, chess, swings, BBQ
a couple of multi-purpose shops with swing, darts, chess, BBQ
A cross between a tiny club and a video games and magazine store - tv, dance, darts, chess, swing. myshuno, music
Swimming pool with BBQ
roller rink with BBQ & chess
ice rink with BBQ & chess
village church

They were mostly made for base game and I put them on TSR so newbies and other people with low-end PCs could find and use them.  The Veronaville Health Spa is about the most popular at 1453 downloads which sucks, but there aren't huge numbers of small community lots out there.  http://www.thesimsresource.com/profiles/view.php?mid=427711  They are of course free.

I mostly keep owned businesses in a separate sub-hood. Again I stick to small lots for functionality and my business ideas aren't terribly original.  Sedona has a lot of starter businesses and Meadow Lawns has a business empire.

I mainly use Wolfsim68's Stoneyville community lots.  She can be found at TSR.  I've just noticed she has now become a Featured Artist, so her lots are no longer free - I'm disappointed, because when she left MTS2 to go to TSR as a Select Artist (and Insim for a while) she said her lots would always be free at TSR.  Hopefully they can be found in the booty at PMBD.

Her community lots are all small 2x2 or 2x3 lots, and are all done in the same style, so look good from the neighbourhood view when placed next to each other.  Some of her lots (such as the police station and courthouse) I use more for decoration to make the neighbourhood look like a town, rather than for actual use.  I use some of her lots as businesses for my sims to run - they come fully stocked & decorated, all my sim has to do is hire staff and add in a few hacks, and the business is ready to go.  I use other lots of hers as community lots for my sims to go socialising.  Then there's the ones I add to my custom universities, such as the library and the gym, and I edited one of the dorm lots to turn it into a secret society.

You can see why wolfsim68 is now a featured artist - they're nice looking lots.  A couple are still free, so I've DL'd those.
I do think consistency of style on community lots makes a difference to a neighbourhood - it's in the little things sometimes: same lamposts, wall covering, roof style/colour.  River and willows is actually a graphic hungry style; it works on small lots, but it wouldn't be a good, unlaggy style on larger lots.