More Awesome Than You!

For those that expressed an interest in sharing a neighborhood, why don't you list your set-up and playing styles and maybe we can match some people up.


I have the base, Uni and NL installed.
I play with mods and custom content but wouldn't mind if it were a "clean" neighborhood
I'd be interested in trading neighborhoods after someone else has played them or just posting stories about what my "game" has done.

I was thinking of a "trailer trash" kind of family - something similiar to the Brokes - to contribute to the neighborhood. I was thinking we could have a "good side" of the neighborhood and a "bad side" and see how the sims interact. The "bad side" would start out with very few things and low level or no jobs. The "good side" would be uni educated sims with jobs at higher levels.

 ;D  ;D  ;D  ;D

What expansions, if any, do you have installed?
Do you play with mods or custom content? Will you consider a neighborhood that has/doesn't have mods/custom content even if that's not the way you normally play?
Do you have a story idea for the neighborhood?
Do you want to pass the neighborhood back and forth between people in the group-picking up where someone else has left off story-wise  -or- do you just want to create a neighborhood story where everyone starts out with the same characters and lots and then update the group with stories as to how your sims have progressed?

It would be cool to create a neighborhood and pass it(and the downloads folder) from person to person, each person playing it for 1 day and making whatever changes/additions they wish. At the end the neighborhood could be posted for download.

 :-X

That would be cool, but that'd be a hell of a lotta downloads and (unwanted) hacks being spread around.

I recently started a new neighborhood, I was inspired by JadeElliot and his WONDERFULL downtown Whimsy. Right now I've only constructed the downtown area.

Now I have to make the residential area. I'm thinking about doing what the above mentioned: making a somewhat "bad" side of town. Maybe just some moderately cheaper homes.

The hacks or the neighborhood/downloads folders can be removed...no?

yes they can be theonly issue I see is some of us have CC that we have no clue now who made it

I have uni and nl. I'm sorry but I am going to have to refuse to play without my hacks. Going without the phonehack for several weeks was hell for me and I'm not willing to do that again. :P

Exactly - there are a couple of ways to handle that.

1. The shared neighborhood has no mods /hacks - so nothing gets moved from machine to machine except Maxis made stuff.
2. Only "agreed upon" mods/hacks are used and everyone using the shared neighborhood downloads them. There would be nothing in the neighborhood that people didn't already have.

As you noted, your personal download folder can be moved and a new one put in its place for when you are playing the shared neighborhood. You remove that folder when you play your own game and no new hacks/mods are introduced into your personal neighborhood.

Also, if you are a windows xp user, you can create a separate user ID to use with shared neighborhood and that user ID would keep all downloads separate from your personal folders.

I have the main game and both EP's installed.

I play with all kinds of hacks, mods, and custom content, but could live without them (except ones that take out annoyances, like "What's This" everytime I add an item, and the VERY excessive whining).

My idea for a neighboorhood in this project: Start off with 2-4 houses, all somehow connected (family ties, friendship, or lovers... anything as long as they are connected). In these houses the sims included are varying in how old they are (like, one is a adult halfway to elder, a child is almost a teen, etc... it annoys me how when you create sims they are all the same age, there should be gaps sometimes)

I think passing the neighboorhood back and forth between other members after say, 1-2 sim weeks, in a week our time would be fun. We could update with a story what happened, and let the next person pick it up from there. Reminds me fondly of highschool when we would pass along a 'story' notebook, one would start, pass it around, and it would eventually end.

Makes for an interesting reading, seeing what everyone did with the story. I believe the same in this situation.

I am one of the exception here which have no mods, hacks, genetics, clothes or objects in my game and I am not really interested in adding any (except for some mods that sounds really useful).  I do understand though that for some they are essential and would not ask for anyone to remove them.  The only thing I use are the in cheats like boolprop testingcheats, aging on/off, aspirationlevel #, etc...

Why not make a few basic families with a scenario that everyone can place in their game.  Since I have a clean game I could make those familes if you wish and upload them on Sims 2 bbs site, you just need to give me the scenario for each of the family and I could write it in the family bio.  We can then place those in a custom hood we create with a downtown section and University if all of us who wish to participate have all the expansions packs (I do have Uni and Nightlife).

The important thing for me is not to share the neighborhoods but to have specific goals for each family which would of course not involve using hacks or cheats as a shortcut so all of us start the same.

We could have a married Romance Sims (female or male not important) who is really excited about the new downtown area that arrived in its town and wants to date everyone but must keep his/her relationship with spouse perfect.

Another could be a single mom/father with a knowlege teen that really wish to go to University but for some reason the parent is against that and all paranormal stuff.  The teen would need to found a way to make its parent accept the fact it needs to go to University by making it be friends with professors in the game and by going to private school.

Another family could be made with 2 elders and 1 adult in a huge house.  The adult must find a spouse that needs to be approve by both parents (must have a relation of 100/90 in a certain determine time) to be able to inherit the house, otherwise it will go to charity.  The elder cannot call the future spouse to build relationship, it must done other ways.

These are some ideas, let me know what you think of them.

I have Uni and NL installed. I have thousands of files of CC. I think my game just blew up actually. I added download folder number 20 and the poor game wouldn't load. I may have to do some culling, hehe. Anyway, I'll go with the flow and do whatever you guys agree is best.

I do use hacks, but I don't have to if that's an issue.

hm, I don't want to upload and download a bunch of stuff for a whole neighborhood... my net connect isn't very good, and I suspect it'd blow up for me. But an rpg-type thing sounds like a lot of fun. If you decide to do something like that, I'd love to participate, if there's room for me (I haven't even finished reading the original thread, much less posted to it).

Another way to do something rpg-like that hasn't been suggested yet would be to have a neighboorhood theme and for everyone to make a character/family that is "theirs" and fits in with the theme and put in everyone else's characters as townies and then play out the story, see how they relate. Updates could be posted and added and have to be added in to other games as well (temporary control for babies or making sure someone goes to Uni when they should or the like.) Some goals to reach would be good as well.

If that doesn't make sense, and anyone's interested, I can try again to explain, with examples and suchlike :)

Um, I have the base game, all EPs and use hacks and CC - tho if I can't play a dl thing, that probably doesn't matter, thought I should say anyways.

I don't think the actual bare terrains are that big to download. Lots that contain no custom content usually aren't bad either but we could even just use Maxis lots. *shrug*

The rest of the custom content I suppose could be up to the user. Even if we upload our played lots later, they're easily cleaned of custom content with clean installer or you could exit the game, take your downloads out, then package the house and then go put the downloads back in for the next time you play.

Aha, I also forgot about the feature in NL that allows you to disable all CC.

I would love to participate - sounds like a great way to alleviate some boredom.  I have both EP's, and hacks/CC are not a problem for me.

Oh terrains aren't big at all. Maybe I'm misunderstanding totally.

<goes back to lurking and quits enabling footinmouth>

OK - first we need a terrain for our neighborhood. I have SimCity4, so I can do some custom terrains, but I warn you - I'm not too good at it. Please give HONEST feedback - if it looks like crap, say so.

What kind of terrain does everyone vote for: flat, hilly, mountain, river, ocean beach?  Lush, desert, concrete?

While people are posting what they want, I'll play with a couple of terrains and post pictures.  People could critique them and I can make adjustments.

I like lush, flat terrain.  I'm boring that way, but I prefer houses I make to not be too much hassle - liveable and nothing fancy (besides, all the huge houses make my computer slow to a crawl anyway).

Remove foot from mouth.   :D

Actually, we were talking about different ways of doing it.

1. We all contribute to a neighborhood and build one and then we all start with the same beginning story and "do our own thing"
2. #1 plus we actually share the neighborhood and play out stories that other people have started

I'm going with the idea that whichever route we decide, we at least need to build the neighborhood. We can start using only Maxis items until we have enough of a consensus of where we're going with this.  Besides, if we go with option #1, people can always add their mods and CC after we "launch" the neighborhood.

I'd play the typical lush terrain. Something interesting, but flat. Maybe a large omnipotent hill in the corner that slowly goes down into a flat valley type thing? Call it MATY Hill. :P

I like lush terrain. It doesn't have to be flat I actually like hills but I prefer for the lots to be fairly level. If just the area along the roads is flat the rest can be hilly or whatever for interest, yes? I have all the ep's and boat loads of hacks and cc. I can always change some of this for the "thing" we do.

Thank you so much for the compliment, but I am a woman. female. girl. with ta-ta's.

*bows. adjusts her bra strap. exits stage right, grinning.*

Whoops. Sorry about that. My mistake! Normally when I don't know a posters gender I'll say (s)he. But for some reason I totally assumed you were a dude. I guess it was the Elliott.

Again, sorry. ;)

I have the eps and a boat load of cc/ some hacks but not a boatload of those most of mine are fixes and behavioral types like no rabbit spin and no "whats this". I like lush terrain with fairly level lots I like hills just not on the lots

Can we see pictures?  Just to remove all doubt, mind you.    ;D

Well, it's seems like there's been a lot of votes for flat terrain....figures I'd make something with a mountain. Well, at least the areas where we'd build lots are flat. Let me know what you like and don't like-this is a group project. I've already said that I'm not very good at this, so I won't have hurt feelings if you say it's crap.

Here's Matyville:

(http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a303/SimmieCal/snapshot_00000005_d07fcee5.jpg)
(http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a303/SimmieCal/snapshot_00000005_b07fceef.jpg)
(http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a303/SimmieCal/snapshot_00000005_b07fced4.jpg)
(http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a303/SimmieCal/snapshot_00000005_707fcf11.jpg)

Let me think that over. Hmm. No.

:-)

Thanks for the grin though. I find that I could be mistaken for the male half of our species odd because I write in a female manner, I think...but what does that mean? I shall leave you to ponder. Back to the thread topic.

SimmieCal, I have been thinking of getting a quaint hood together to share among a few dedicated simmers/storytellers...I am inspired!

To answer your questions:

What expansions, if any, do you have installed? All of them! I am a simmer, through and through!

Do you play with mods or custom content? Will you consider a neighborhood that has/doesn't have mods/custom content even if that's not the way you normally play?  Yep! and Yep!

Do you have a story idea for the neighborhood? Oh...quite a few brewing in my head, I would want to brainstorm with those who are going to participate.


Do you want to pass the neighborhood back and forth between people in the group-picking up where someone else has left off story-wise  -or- do you just want to create a neighborhood story where everyone starts out with the same characters and lots and then update the group with stories as to how your sims have progressed?  The FORMER.



What I am looking for are a few other storyteller type players, those who like to take pictures, and really let a family and neighborhood unfold. Those who are not afraid of technology or hacks or installing the hood we share. Those who are dedicated simmers and would participate long-term if possible (we all have lives so I understand that). Those who are not into speeding through the generations.

The way Brynne and WindyMoon and SimmieCal (Just a few folks I have noticed, haven't been here very long) seem to play is the style of folks I would like to play with in sharing a hood.

We could all have our main family and then a few house that any of us could play. We would adher to a main storyline for our hood but let it all rip within our families...we could have a trailer trash family, a criminal underworld family, a wild clan of musicians...whatever we could think of...

Oh, and everyone would need to be imaginative and creative to some degree, not just feeding off everyone else's ideas and copycatting.

That is my dream and I am thinking of how to bring it into reality.

:-)

I like the hood.  Two thumbs up.  ;D

Simmiecal, just saw the hood. Good job!

You know, I was looking at the neighborhood and it was looking too familiar. I went back and looked at your neighborhood.  ::) They are quite similiar - although you did a better job with the water. The waterfall was even in the same spot.

One thing that is funny is that when you bring a SimCity terrain into Sims, you actually get the mirror image of what you were seeing in SimCity. Also, you have to be careful with elevations. Some roads that place ok on rising ground do not translate into the Sims neighborhood. You'll see in the right corner and going towards the back, I had to gradually raise the elevation. The road that actually goes up to the top - I wasn't sure it would show up until I imported it into the neighborhood.

The lot sizes also don't translate one for one. I have to recheck, but I think every tile/row in SimCity actually translate to three tiles in the Sims neighborhood. If you lay two roads right next to each other in SimCity (looking like a wide main/city street) when you actually import them into the Sims, you get two roads with a strip of land one tile wide in between them. (I found this out when I was trying to make a Broadway / Michigan Avenue / Sunset Blvd type of street for my custom hood.)

What size lots are people interested in? I can make sure the streets are closer together or farther apart to accomodate the lot sizes.

That's not too bad! Good, actually!

I, however, don't fancy the lake at the edge of the Nhood. It's a little TOO circular. Maybe give it some odd shape to it, or elongate it through the 'hood as a river.

Just some suggestions that are totally up to you.

EDIT: And maybe add some roads inbetween some of the roads. Hope that makes sense, it's very late. Another thing you could do, is add one large square road somewhere, to put community lots on to form a "townsquare," but that's totally optional.

smaller lots are better for me, cause I have an older computer, but it really does not matter overmuch.

I generally use small to medium sized lots and reserve a larger one for one or two wealthy sims. Even then I try not to go overboard with the big huge mansions.

I like that neighborhood overall, but making the lake into a river that ran at a corner or diagonally through that corner could work too.

For story ideas, heh, what if we all made sims with our usernames? Wouldn't necessarily have to be a self sim, but sort of an avatar of us. It would be interesting to see how we set our personalities as compared to what others think our personalities are. ;)

I have a bunch of hacks and CC in my game. I can live without the CC and most of the hacks though.

I have Uni and NL.

I prefer flat lots, I think a 3X3, 3X4 lot is about optimal for me.

And I was thinking of a family two adults and their teen child, the teen could be gay and the parents could disaprove of that. And it could be all about getting the parents to accept the teens lover.

Edit to explain my thoguhts: I was thinking of this because it would be something new for me as I've never had an exclusiivly  gay sim before, had one or two bisexual romance sims but no excusively gay ones. So it's kind of like exploring new stituations.

I LOVE that idea Motoki...simmies with our usernames! Very interesting thought also as to how we'd set our personalities too....I can see the 'disagreements' now!  ;)

We'll need a Pescado sim who's the grumpy old man of the neighborhood who shoves everyone who peeps with telescopes.

I could see him living in that odd little loner shack in the woods of Pleasantview over by the end of the Rainbow. lol

lol Motoki.  My Pescado Sim (E-Mail challenge) is now an elder, and is a miserable old son-of-a-b...

Like this?

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v471/JadeEliott/Areniainprogress.jpg)

That is The Commons, in Arenia, my main hood. Surrounded by the houses of the gentry, the old and richest families in the hood...as well as the church and graveyard, and the Pig and Whistle the local pub.

In the upper right you can see the graveyard, the Saint Patrick's then across the street, the Rectory where Fidelius and Martha Partridge live.

:-)

Edited to add: That was when I was building it, so there were some empty areas. To get the sandy paths that run n-s and e-w through The Commons, I used the waves effect, which just shows up as a sandy color on land.

ROFL .I think it would be interesting to have sims with our user names. the only thing is we ave to give our sims family names as well as a First name .we  would have to decide on how to do that.

I second the grumpy Pescado wandering around. Who will dare to design that though? No one asked me, but I vote for suspenders.

I have OG, Uni, and NL. I could play with no hacks/cc, as my folder is teeny to begin with. I just started hacking it up a months ago, so I still remember how I worked around all the annoyances before.

I love the user name idea. I am a woman in RL, but I would think a sim with the name "Assmitten" would have to be a fratty dumbass.

There is a Pig and Whistle pub in my town in real life, but I suppose that's not uncommon.

I'll make the Pescado Sim.  I already have a pretty good jumping off point, since JM did help me with the other one I made.

As for user names, if it's two words, or could be broken up into two words, that might work.

we should have or other two resident Modders as Sims in the game

Ok - here's my second crack at it.  I think it's better than the first, but I think there's a deal breaker in it that I didn't notice until too late.

For any one doing custom terrains with SimCity:
You start in god mode-this is where you do your major land shaping: mountains, rivers, lakes, hills, etc
In city mode, you lay your roads and bridges. NOTE: for bridges to actually make it into the Sim neighborhood, the river has to be VERY shallow and the shores VERY close together. In Simcity - it almost looks like only sand with a hint of water. The water really comes out in the neighborhood.

(http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a303/SimmieCal/snapshot_00000006_307ff0f6.jpg)
(http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a303/SimmieCal/snapshot_00000006_307ff134.jpg)
(http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a303/SimmieCal/snapshot_00000006_707ff110.jpg)
(http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a303/SimmieCal/snapshot_00000006_707ff128.jpg)
(http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a303/SimmieCal/snapshot_00000006_b07ff171.jpg)
(http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a303/SimmieCal/snapshot_00000006_d07ff10a.jpg)

and the probable deal breaker:

(http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a303/SimmieCal/snapshot_00000006_f07ff155.jpg)

Bridges are a PAIN IN THE ASS !

The problem is that you have to get the elevation JUST RIGHT in order for the bridge to import. But - there are so many "you can't go back" points. After you make your major elevation changes in god mode and switch to laying roads and bridges in mayor mode, you can't go back to god mode. The changes in god mode are very dramatic and cover a wide area. The changes in mayor mode are very small and cover a tiny area. It's a pain because you really need to use both.

Before I went too far, I checked that the bridge was showing ok (so I thought). It wasn't until after I had already laid all the roads and built the waterfall that the neighborhood was turned at such an angle that I saw the problem with the bridge and the road elevation not matching up.  I tried to cover it up using the bridge in the neighborhood.

Also, once it's in the Sim neighborhood, if you make any changes to the roads, or anything in the SimCity terrain, you have to re-do all the neighborhood decorations (like the waterfall). Also, in SimCity, once you're in mayor mode (laying roads) you can't go back and put a river in - that's why I started with another one instead of trying to modify the first one.

Tell me what you like and dislike of the two, which you prefer, do we want a mountain, different levels, river, etc and tomorrow evening I'll try and make another neighborhood that incorporates all the suggestions posted here.

OK Here's my tuppence worth

The n'hood. You're doing a great job simmiecal. I liked your first n'hood with the two different levels - because I also like the idea of the wealthy sims and the shady sims living in different areas, the higher area on the bluff was ideal for the snobs - snob hill  :D - and the slums could develop by the river - it'll be the port creating the bad influence of course. 

The river & waterfall are nice ideas and give some interest to the landscape. Bridge good too. However far too many roads now in second version. You can make roads look like little subsections of town, I'll show you a pic of a n'hood I created at the bottom of this post. Town square is good for the commercial district too.

I love the idea of creating sims of ourselves with our own usernames. Brilliant! I think we should also make a family for that sim, we each then contribute a family. If I just downloaded a whole n'hood with other peoples' sims & no input, I doubt I could get interested, I don't even play the Maxis sims.

I love some of those buildings, but again - mainly 'cos I'm mostly a builder - I'd like to make my family's house myself. Of course others find that a chore, so maybe it could be a choice. I'd also like to build one of the wealthy homes, though my family will live on the shady side.

I'm in two minds over how to play. (No comments about mental health thank you!)

1) We each play same n'hood for a week turn about, though I wouldn't put first come first served, I'd organise a rotation. I can see that method becoming a burden for the current player for a week, in updating stories and playing, and not much chance of others being able to contribute. By the time it gets round to most players, the interest will have long evaporated.

2) The only way I can see this staying a group exercise is if we are all playing and comparing notes, however that might be worked out.

CC
I think base n'hood, houses and sims should be Maxis content only - file sizes more than anything - and the fact that custom content belongs to people and I don't know if it's quite fair to share it around so freely. Nothing to stop people changing sims clothes, wallpapers etc once they start playing.

Hax
Again, a simple solution. Each person adds the hacks they cannot live without when they are playing their game - a mere couple of dozen or so for me - except for a banned list. Rather than spend ages sorting out what we're allowed, why not suss out the real cheating hacks. For example the flamingos, merola's mind control mirror, aspiration boosting stuff, collections of reward objects and so on. That might be an easier list to concoct. We do need to make his a bit challenging I reckon.



[attachment deleted by admin]

I like the first idea of each participant creating a house with a set-up, everyone who wants to downloading it and working with the creator's story, and then the creator of that house periodically having wildcards that everyone has to abide by. (Obviously, there would need to be a thread where everyone periodically posted what was going on with their sims, so other people could ooh and aah and compare notes.) I don't really like the idea of rotating neighborhoods -- it seems like it would really quickly be too much of a hassle.

Also, I only have the base game + Uni. I've been planning on getting Nightlife, but first I wasn't going to get it until the patch came out, and now I'm waiting for the romancemod and to see if there's a good fix for the furious state, because I don't really like the looks of that. So if there are other people without NL, please speak up! If there aren't, and everyone is going ahead with all this anyway, I might just have to run out to the store real quick.

Oh, and doesn't the official Exchange only keeps the uploaded houses up for about two weeks or something before deleting them if there haven't been a certain number of downloads? I don't know how many people would be doing this, but I don't think that's really conducive to people joining the fun at a later date. I'd be willing to host some of the lots on my website (god knows it needs a real use, as it's currently just sitting there gathering e-dust) after everyone has uploaded to the exchange. This would also be a good way to keep it all easily accessible in case the official site has some of the wonky problems that it has had in the past.

(Also, hi! I've been lurking here for about four months, but only yesterday did I decide to actually post things. I decided it was getting creepy that I knew everyone else and they didn't know me. A bit like peering through the telescope during the daytime, you might say.)

Oh and - I have base game, uni & NL

*runs over - shoves eaglezero - runs off lot

I believe it's to do with the ratings. When people rate my lots they don't get 'culled'.

Ahh, I knew it was something, but when I strolled over to the official site to check, it was down. And it hurt my eyes.

I've uploaded several lots to the exchange now and then (under eaglezero78), but I don't think any of them have stuck around. It's probably because my houses weren't huge mansions. They were, however, very efficient and made for ease-of-play. I find that most of the houses I've downloaded aren't at all like that, which annoys me greatly and wish I knew where those people who made them lived so I could go steal their newspapers. I download a house thinking it'll be so cool, only to find out that the kitchen has about eighty countertops. Seriously, who needs that many countertops? My kitchens have, at most, six countertops.

I think I got kind of off-topic. Whoops.

That's  what I was thinking when I made it. Right near the shoreline is the prime commercial real estate and the yacht club. Behind that is the not so good commercial real estate moving into the industrial warehouses. Next to that, the not so good residential neighborhood. As you go higher in elevation, better housing with the most exclusive housing near the cliffs. Maybe one end of the river could be the upper class yacht club and the other end the port. The prime commercial real estate near the yacht club and the riff-raff near the port.



I changed the streets a little near the commercial district (by the highrises) to give it that boxy "downtown" feel.  Let me know what you think.



Well, I lied.  :P It's not that there isn't a way to change the lot after I leave god mode - I just didn't find it and it is a pain because it takes so long to make the changes.  Here is another version of the first one. It incorporates the previous suggestions to not have as many streets as the second one and to change the lake shoreline to not be so circular. I was also able to add the waterfall in and get the bridge in place.

Let me know what other changes you want made.

(http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a303/SimmieCal/snapshot_00000007_d0801414.jpg)
(http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a303/SimmieCal/snapshot_00000007_d080142e.jpg)
(http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a303/SimmieCal/snapshot_00000007_1080144f.jpg)

Who needs sleep when we're building a neighborhood?  :P

I'd be happy with whatever for the neighborhood for the most part. As long as it has a fair amount of more or less level space to build on. I know designing them in Sim City 4 is a pain because I tried it once. :P

I've been thinking about the logistics of working this out too. It's hard! heh. One of the things that annoys me most of this game is I feel compelled to play every damned house just so that everyone will age at about the same right. But a lot of times I don't want to play every house. It would be nice to play just one. And then even those who don't have as much time to spend should be able to manage one house.

I was thinking everyone could peridocally package their house or sims and upload it somewhere and we could update them in our neighborhood, but I don't really think that would work. :( It would just make duplicates. :P So I keep trying to think of other ways.

How much of a character's information is stored in their actual character file and not the neighborhood one? Like if I uploaded N004_User00100.package & N004_User00101.package etc and you guys all copied those files to your neighborhood's characters directory and overwrote the old ones, would it update those characters in the neighborhood if they've gotten promotions, less days left to elder, changed appearance, bought new clothes, etc etc.

But even then, babies are a problem. If my neighborhood has 200 sims the next kid will be 201. But for someone else's neighborhood, their kid will be 201. :p

Ugh, this is a logistic nightmare and it's 5am where I'm at so I need to stop thinking about it lol.

To answer Motoki's question, copying the user file doesn't work, because the changes are in the neighbourhood.package file.  I've tried that when I've had a corrupt neighbourhood file and it simply doesn't work. 

While I really like the idea of passing a neighbourhood round, this wouldn't solve the problem in the original thread - i.e., boredom.  In fact, it could be even worse if we're spending weeks waiting to get the 'hood back! 

This idea has made me realise why I prefer to play the Maxis hoods and not my own custom hoods (which I just cannot get into).  It's because with the former, it's possible to SHARE.  I can come on a forum like this and say "Guess what Don did today" and most people will know exactly who I am talking about, but if I were to say "You'll never guess what Mrs Blah-Blah did", nobody would know who I meant and they probably wouldn't be interested either.  That's why a shared neighbourhood would work so well - none of the Maxis pre-made crap, but we'd still have that shared feeling of knowing all the Sims and being able to understand what was happening in each other's games.  Hope that makes sense.

I'm leaning towards us all contributing people and lots and storylines to a base neighborhood and then letting it loose. We would all have the same starting point, just like the Maxis neighborhoods.  While it sounds interesting to play the game after someone else (they may have taken the story in a direction you weren't anticipating and now you have to deal with the consequences) I think it would be too difficult to do logistically.

I think this idea especially with the wild card thing would work best.

I agree with this. I kind of thought that was what the original idea was (I could be wrong though, wouldn't be a first!) and thought that sounded like fun. Kind of like Brynne's sim, Justin; people have downloaded him and then told Brynne what he was doing in their neighborhood/story. I like the idea of having a storyline sort of setup and then taking the ball and running with it, like the pre-made families that came with the game. I've had TS2 since late February and the Broke family is still consistently one of my favorites to play and I think it part of it at least was because of the setup story around them. I love the idea of wild cards and dealing with the consequences of them. Also just random things like the phone calls in TS1 (you know the ones, you sold a book you get $5000 or things along those lines) but in the form of wildcards would be fun too.
Okay, I'm rambling...I'll be quiet now.

Perfect! Something just like that. You're so great at neighborhoods. I wish mine were as beautiful.

So then we get a base neighborhood terrain, and then create characters who we can post the bodyshop sim templates for, create background stories for them and specify how their personality traits and aspirations should be set and let them interact with each other?

We could also specify which houses we want them to live and probably best to use Maxis ones I suppose since the minimizes how much we need to download. With NL it's really easy to move houses between neighborhoods too, just put an empty house from one of the Maxis neighborhoods in the housing bin and then place it in the new neighborhood.

*blushes like a schooolgirl*

Golly, gee! Thanks!

I am liking the way the ideas are flowing so far and do not have anything to add beyond what I have already wished for, so am shutting up until something constructive is about to come out of my mouth.

Edit: Just thought of something constuctive:

Once simmiecal is done, I can volunteer to "design the hood"...put in some agreed upon community lots and layout the flora and fauna, and make it look so pretty, like I like to do...and then upload it to megashare or rapidshare or some agreed upon place, it would be named N005 or something high so that those of use who have other custom hood do not have to renumber...and then we can all go along with the plan we seem to be agreeing upon.

Can I design the hood, can I? huh? huh? *pleads* :-)

Not a problem for me- I suck at designing hoods! Can make a neat house but never even think about placement and designing themed areas. For me it would have to be hood 6 or above since I have 5 already.


Come to think of it I havent even played in #5 so I can shelve it and place this one there so....

for me it would have to be #5 as I already have 4 the three maxis hoods and 1 custom.I suck at design of any type.hoods or houses

JadeElliott: I think ure Whimsy Valley is beautiful, I know it's not entirely up to me but you have my vote :)

I have original game, uni and NL, and I'm all for the idea's here.

JadeElliot has my vote as well I love her Whimsy Valley.I have Uni and NL as well

Several people have expressed an interest in Jade's neighborhood. Correct me if I'm wrong Jade, but the terrain and the lots you downloaded from elsewhere and didn't create them yourself? I have absolutely no problem using Jade's neighborhood as she is a great designer (you should see some more of her pictures over on MTS2). How would people feel about using the downloads from the other sites to create the neighborhood (the lots, custom walls, custom floors, etc)?

Maybe a nice compromise (being really presumptuous here) but maybe Jade could be real involved in laying out the neighborhood and the neighborhood decorations once we have contributed our lots?

While we're on the subject of Jade's neighborhood, I really like the way she has the home / business set-up and would hope that some of the contributed lots would also function the same way. In order for them to work properly, we would need to include Inge's hacks in the game. How do people feel about that? If people don't want the hacks in their game, the business won't function, but in their version of the neighborhood, their sims would just get a regular job and the lots would still function normally. Thoughts on the matter?

Well, I am glad you guys would trust me enough to design it. I would think along these lines:

A downtown area, with community lots...

A snobby righ uppercrust area, with gates (a neighborhood deco, not real gates)

A poor as dirt, run down area for us to put our less fortunate scumbag families in...

A middle class family homes area with a play ground

I would put a small parking lot or two in, for visual flavor...

I would endeavor to make the hood compact and easily navigatable...

and I would separate homes with trees, flora, rocks, etc.

As for all of us having the lots, that is not a problem, because I setup and easily explain how to install the hood and the lots so you do not have to download them all.

BUT, to make this as easy as possible, I suggest that we use another sims 2 folder in My documents, that we use just for playing this hood...It is easy to do, and I would write the instructions. It does not involve any SimPE stuff.

Better than going all over tarnation to find and download the community lots I put in. I would not put any houses in unless we agreed on it.

That is correct, I did not build the houses, I only designed the hood - meaning I put the houses down and used hood deco to make it pretty and realistic, with different sections. I could use ErwinSims lots, his are all custom free. And I could include some other homes I know are good, in some different styles, but there would be no custom content in them, a player can add them later...that is my suggestion, for ease of use for us all. :-) What do you all think?



Great idea. If you like a house, you can email it to me, before a certain cutoff date and I wil install it in the hood, cleaned of custom content. This is easy for me to do with CleanInstaller.



I think, if I understand it, that each player can just pick a home they like once they get the hood and set up their own business, using the tools at Inge's and my instructions I've put in the posts here. Since we are setting up our own homes, either buidling ones we like, or going with a premade one we dl and put in, or last choice, using one I put in the hood already? Or am I confused? Trying to keep up with what we are doing.

:-)

I thought maybe design the hood. Then when people start contributing families, they may or may not want to include a house they've built. If not, then that's where the extras like Erwin's or whatever come in. I also have 7 starter homes, unfurnished, Maxis original, I could put up for download if required. Because I'm a builder - as are many others - I saw this group effort as part of ownership of the hood.

This sounds like such a wonderful idea!  I want to play, too, if y'all will have me.  ;)

I have both UNI and NL installed.  I am CC and Mod/Hack crazy, but I can disable all that in-game if that is the consensus of the group.:)  I also prefer small-to-medium sized lots because of my computer's need for "Speed". 

I like the idea of each one of us designing a house and a sim and then uploading them to one central person.  This person installs them onto the neighborhood and keeps track of who's participating, etc.  I think that I would like to contribute maybe one or two Sims in the house, only.  And I really like the idea of us contributing one sim, it being named after our username here.  Would we upload them here, or upload them to the exchange and then e-mail or post the link?

Simmiecal:  I love the terrain you have made.  I have played around with SC4 and built terrains, but nothing as beautiful as that.  Yes, the bridges are a major pain!  I could never get them to work right!

Jade:  Your neighborhood is beautiful.  I like your ideas for the the layout of the shared neighborhood as well.  :) 

This will be fun!  I'm excited, because I needed a change in gameplay!  :)

Ok -

Here's the deal:

Everyone that wants to contribute is welcome. You can contribute a sim, sim family, lot or storyline.

When you submit your contributions, please provide the following information:

Are you using the base, Uni, NL?  The "combined" neighborhood will require NL, but with the contributor's permission, the lots will also be made available separately (as well as the terrain) for any one that wants to build their own.

Submissions must be made with ONLY Maxis content. Any custom content will be excluded when importing into the hood.

If you are submitting a sim or sims, are they meant to be playable characters or are they townies? (We need townies!)

I expect to be taking contributions thru (at least) 11/27. I need to see how many people actually participate and I need to figure out how to set-up the web pages for all of this.

****

For the sim family I personally intend to contribute, their storyline will include a home based business. The original lot will not have any custom objects, but I plan to provide links to the custom content that I think would be appropriate for the storyline. Of course, everyone is free to play the lots as they see fit.  If you had specific custom content in mind for use on your lot, you can provide that info and it will be incorporated for the people to download (if they wish).

Submissions and/or questions/comments can be emailed to: SimmieCal@simpotence.com

Looking good! Hopefully I'll get a chance to do this in about 5 days when I get to my weekend. :)

How pathetic is it that I already have 9 neighbourhoods. I deleted 1-3, but have 4-9. I suppose I can rename (renumber) myself if necessary.

I love the first neighbourhood, with the separate levels for rich and poor.

Should townies be put on a lot to send, have skills, jobs and/or relationships with each other or just sent as is? (cloned with SimPe and packaged in Body Shop or on an empty lot?)

sorry for all the questions, apparently I'm either very anal or very stupid and don't want to create more work than necessary.

You can send the sims either way - just let me know in the email. If you send them packaged in body shop but envision them as having certain skills and/or jobs, I can add that info after they are brought into the neighborhood. Any townies that don't have characteristics assigned to them by their creators, I will assign random attributes to them so they all aren't the same (no skills, no jobs).

I would also appreciate it, if someone has a preference as to whether their sim is from the rich part of town or the poor part of town or is one of the newly arrived immigrants, that they specify that it the email. Whatever the creator specifies for the sim/lot I will follow to the best of my ability. Any details not specified will be assigned. (So if someone wants to create sims but not bother with a story for them, that's fine.)

Also, keep in mind that we would like townies of all ages - not just adults but elders, teens and kids. (Just no Marshas or Goopys, please.  :P )

Along the same lines - if we're sharing a family AND a house envisioned for the family, is it alright to send the family in the house or should they be seperated? Just double-checking here..

I think it would be easier to send the family in the house, but I'm ok with either method.

simmiecal you're definitely better at making terrains than I am! LOL  I think I'm too used to playing SC4. ;)

At any rate, I was trying to read through all these posts to pick up info on how to properly place a bridge and noticed you mentioned something about God Mode and problems because once you start the city the terrain can only be edited with the tiny city-mode tools.

I'm not sure if anyone's mentioned it previously because I didn't spend time reading through all the posts here (might interesting reading what I did, though!)  However, more to the point!

There's a cheat that will allow you back into the terrain-editing God Mode even after you've started your city.  Hold down the ctrl-shift-alt keys, then click on God Mode and that SHOULD bring up all the features from before the city was started (then just click on Mayor Mode to go back into the city).  If that isn't right, unfortunately I don't have it written down correctly, but the info can be found at the official SC4 site.

One of my biggest complaints with SimCity has always been the lack of an undo button. :D

This whole idea sounds like a lot of fun!

I like the idea of everyone having the same characters in a custom hood and then reading the different stories and situations everyone came up with.

I'm having such a problem right now keeping my game interesting. 

Simmiecal I love the first neighborhood you came up with its very nice looking.

JadeElliot I love the way you decorate a neighborhood.   I always end up adding too many trees.

Now can we make our sims available for download on the sims2 site?

If you want to contribute your sims to the neighborhood, you can either email them to me or email me the link to your sims2 page with your permission to include them in the joint neighborhood.   simmiecal@simpotence.com

OK, I just emailed simmiecal with the links to download a hippie commune. Who else has made stuff, I'm curious to know. :)

So far, in  addition to your contribution, I have received one lot and two sim families. Several people have asked questions about submissions so it will be interesting to see how many people will submit something after the weekend. I picked a tentative submission due date by next week Monday (11/28). I figure that would give people two weekends to work on anything they might want to submit - after all, some people have RL stuff to do  :P ::) and with this coming week being a holiday in the US, people might not have much sim time.

I have the house for my family done and some random townies made. Just need to finish the family FOR the house and then you'll be getting something from me.

Cool! I have starter houses for download, as does Reggikko and this Erwin who has been mentioned - I get time to go and look for his work today :) - so don't worry if anyone isn't into building.

Are we going to make any community lots? I might try one, haven't done one yet. I will also create a random townie selection this weekend.

Simmiecal, I visualised the commune as being on the outlying areas of the poorer district, more country than town.

Mine is done, but I think I'd like to at least install University so I can have a few more options as to decor because frankly using the Maxis stuff from the base game is uh...
I've also created a few townies. Elders and kids because I thought less people would be interested in sending them.

yeah!
I thought the same  ;D

Simmecal:  Did you get my submission?  I was having trouble sending because it was a large file.   ???

Here is what I have received so far:

Andrea sent a self-sim (is that you Andygal?)
Kristalrose sent a lot (haven't pulled it from the exchange yet)
Witch sent the hippie commune
Twiki sent 8 townies with a backstory
Cherie sent a file that keeps crashing my email when I try opening (will try from another machine this evening in case it is a computer specific problem instead of a problem with the email)

Is anyone else interested in this project and just needs more time or is there just not enough interest to pursue this project?

I'm definately still interested but need more time

Just to let you know, there should have been two lots in the zip - the random townies (no real backstory), and a family in the house (which is what all the babbling was about). If you didn't get the lot with the Jenkins family, let me know and I will resend - they're the ones I've been working on for the past two weeks. :)

Yes.

I'm still keen.
*bump

xmas break is coming, things might settle a bit after the big day & we can all play more. ;)

Well, if people are interested, why don't we extend the deadline to the end of December? That will give people a couple of weekends to work on items. If we don't have much by then, we might have to scrap the whole idea.

Witch, if you don't mind, regardless of what comes of the shared neighborhood, would you mind if I use your hippie commune in my neighborhood?

Great, glad you got them.  :)  Need any more?

Anything and everything you want to contribute is welcome.

I've sent some stuff - hope you can use some of it.  willow walk lots and a few families
I have the base game only, no Uni, no NL.  Is anyone here interested in sharing something somehow?

How about the no 20k handout hack?  are you going to play with that?

I just have the base game for now, but I was going to install the EPs before sharing because I was hoping there'd be better decorating options, my homes are very user friendly, but definately lack the creativity that everyone else seems to have. (mine are boxes because I like to see what's going on in all my rooms, they're also very efficient, everything is there for a reason)
I have a few different families that I'm considering, but I'd like them to be in (a replica of) their home.

OK -
Here is what I am envisioning:

Personally, I am addicted to custom content and cannot play with just the fugly Maxis stuff. I am going to create the neighborhood with custom content. But I will put up two neighborhoods for download: one with custom content and one where I have stripped out all the custom content. The characters and back story will be the same for both.

As far as "rules", we agreed that the base neighborhood would be available for anyone to download and to play as they choose. If there is enough of an interest, we will come up with a "challenge" that people could participate in with the neighborhood if they choose to. I'd be interested in participating in the challenge, but it seems from those that have already responded, they are not too keen about playing with challenge rules.

So, feel free to send your submissions with custom content and I'll later remove the custom content for those that don't want it. If you can, tell me what custom content is included in your file. (If your download folder is anything like mine, that's easier said than done.  ;) )

If it's not too redundant, I could send it both ways.
I created it in a clean neighbourhood (under a new Windows XP user with no CC) but I packaged the lot and all the Sims are cloned.
I'd wanted to send it with a couple pictures of how it looks in my neighbourhood (with the CC), but I could easily do one in Maxis and the same with CC. I know where most of my CC comes from and could limit my use to stuff I can identify.

I think you should have received the willow walk lots which includes some small, playable community lots: health spa, one stop shop, the fun house, community swimming pool, riverside shop with a pool in the river (I never got that how I wanted it - I think you need uni to do it properly.

HAving trouble sendiing families - what's your max file size? 

I would be flattered. :) Keep your eyes open for the next few days, I have an upgraded version I'll be uploading soon. I put the main room on a foundation 'cos I got sick of paging up and down all the time. I've added a driveway for one car and moved the toilets to the lowest spot on the lot and more. Plus the writers' shack for Ancient up on the hill amongst the trees, and the band practice room above the main common room...

Found a mini cooper for download the other day, I'm going to enjoy watching 15 commune members get into it. ;)