More Awesome Than You!

What are your favorite places to download lots? I'm looking for some that are different than what I normally get. (I prefer that they not be on the biggest lot size, fully furnished with everything under the sun, and cost a billion trillion simoleans cuz my lousy video card can't handle it, but I still like to look and dream :))

Oh and do you have different sites you like for community and/or university lots?

Lets see now, who can I remember off hand?

Reggikko and Emma have marvelous lots on their page at the official board. You can get to them by clicking on the links in their respective signatures. Both offer great starter homes with potential.

Witch is another great builder. Some of her lots are very intense, but she has quite a few interesting lots to offer.

JoanE of the invisible house fame also has some nice lots, but I can't remember her official board username, maybe someone else will, or maybe I'll come across it.

JadeEliott builds, but I'm not sure whether that's neighborhoods only or individual lots. He or she has the street-parking tutorial posted here, you might find out there.

Simmiecal has a template lot for streetparking on her/his site, there might be some more goodies. You can get the link in JadeEliott's street parking tutorial, just scroll down until you find it.

If I find some more interesting lot/lotbuilders, I'll let you know :D

I prefer modern homes, and thus:

I like Hügö's lots quite a bit: http://www.xn--hg-gkaw.de/index.htm
Reflex has some interesting houses to try as well: http://www.reflexsims.de/
And lastly, Tribeccasims has some nice Eichler style homes: http://www.tribeccasims2.com/

There's also Sim Estates for more traditional style homes: http://simestates2.planetthesims.gamespy.com/

Why download lots? You miss all the pleasure of the game - being trained as an architect...:).

I never download lots. I make one packaged lot for a family, one - for students (which I can turn to a dorm), and one - for elders (smaller) - and all of my sims live in that kind of lots.

I prefer to download objects, walls, and floors - and to decorate, and re-decorate my lots, each 6-7 sim days.

Thanks!

Witch has some wonderful lots - I downloaded all her starter ones when she posted here awhile back. I should have mentioned that my computer is allergic to the official board - it locks it up. (The computer that's connected to the net is a mac, and it just doesn't play well with that site.)

Tribecca is the one I don't have bookmarked and have been trying and trying to remember :) Thank you!

I do build some of my own gali, but I'm not an architect and it takes me a long time. I don't mind using nice ones from other people when I can. And it's fun to see what other people like :)

I don't download many lots because they are nearly all too big to be playable and too expensive for Sims to buy without cheating.  Who moves rich sim families anyway?  If they run out of space, you extend.  Before NL you couldn't move without losing career objects or cheating to get them back and depreciation means they lost out moving.  OK, so the problem has gone with inventories - or it would if they weren't buggy.  But how often do you want to move an established family?  When the kids grow up and you move them out, you need Starter homes, just like for new sims.   

I look around occasionally out of curiousity.  I visit TSR regularly anyway and I've been to simestates2.  I take the odd lot from a site whose objects I like to see how they use them - 4eversimfantasy for example.   I built my own set of small starter homes and community lots with water and willows and cycle through those when I start a new family.  they have a distinctive unified look on the 'hood screen. They're on TSR.  I'm cwykes there too.  I'd love to know how they work in NL where you can see next door.  When I get fed up with water and willows, I'll do another themed set.

There aren't many small community lots around either.  That's what I built first, when my PC was really graphically challenged.  The maxis lots took for ever to load, so I didn't use them.

Yeah, I'm looking for smaller or medium-sized things also. I'll download a big lot to see how it works and because it's really cool, but only put it in a test neighborhood as I can usually feel the slowdown just clicking on it in the bin, without even placing it :)

I have been moving families up lately tho. I like to redecorate anyway and as I can keep things I really want now (as long as it doesn't go buggy on me) I don't mind so much. And my built-on additions aren't as nice as a new home that's intended to be a bit bigger.

If I can get the exchange to work for me (big if :), I'll check out yours in NL and post some pics for you. Water and willows is about perfect for what I'm working on - and especially if you've got some community lots. Since NL I'm having a better time with community lots - I can play downtown pretty well. And there are some out there I'd never be able to manage myself - I found a train station, with trains, and a bus depot :) tho I haven't put them in yet and dunno if they'll crash my game. It's worth a try tho.

PS - I really love Hügö's site as well. I'd never been there before. Thanks so much. <happily spending hours looking at everything> :)

Oh, I do my share of building. In fact, I enjoy it more than playing with the little lives at times. ;)
The only thing that gets me is that I can't share them due to the "Do not upload...do not this...do not that". :/

They're on TheSimsResource not the exchange.  I know that's a pay site, but they come up free quite often. Actually they are all in the free section at the moment, so help yourself!  All maxis content, base game only required.
http://www.thesimsresource.com/profiles/view.php?mid=427711

Re extending, yeah I know what you mean.  You can add rooms, but it's expensive to make existing rooms bigger and turning a bungalow into two stories is always a problem - the stairs never fit.

Doesn't TSR have some thing where if your lot is in some competition they have it stays free or some such thing? I thought I remembered hearing something about that.

Don't know - I've never tried a building challenge.  I searched lots for the word challenge and they weren't all free.
the current one is the add a room challenge.  Maybe it says somewhere - or might appeal to the other Simpotents   
http://forums.thesimsresource.com/forumdisplay.php?f=535
One thing that irritates me is they still call it a starter home in the exchange, but it costs about 60k by the time they've added rooms...

I know I've got 2 days free downloading because over 10,000 people downloaded my lots (that's chicken shit on TSR).  I posted them there because I've always been a download junkie and I figured I owed them.  I also know, cos I asked, that they are still mine to give away.

I think you have to be a "featured artist" for them to demand exclusivity, although I've even seen them let that requirement slide if they wanted someone badly enough.

Yep, that's the deal.
It's starting to make me sick to see more and more people like  DH and other truly great creators getting sucked in by these  fuckwads.

Echo has her stuff  like all over the place. I know I got her rug meshes from her own site and some of the other creators who make must have thingies don't get stuck in the exculsivity pit but they do have their TSR slaves who happily go about making things for them because they are too ignoarnt to realize how badly they are being used.

PS: remember the bullshit when they got Secret Sims entire collection and suddenly if you had any thing on an SS base you had some TSR flunky demanding you remove those objects now because the bases were no longer free to use? That shit put me off ever making any thing for any Sims game ever again. And the idiots like Shorty Boo who think they are the end all be all of content creation and bitch if something that looks remotly like something they did is on the exchange with out the discription of the sim some how crediting them even if they didn't make a fucking thing on the sim have convinced me Steve Buttfuck over there isn't the only one who needs a good boot up his ass.

But yep the well trained little sheepies will forever defend no matter what.
But think about it people memberships are what now $8 and they have how many members?
Trust me bandwidth cost aren't that high.
Steve has a nice proffitable busness going there.

One of my favorite places to go for inspiration is http://www.webalice.it

Jade has said that she gets a her lots (that you see in the pictures she's posted here) from Erwinsims at TSR.
http://www.thesimsresource.com/profiles/view.php?mid=660800 (http://www.thesimsresource.com/profiles/view.php?mid=660800)
Most of his stuff that I have downloaded of Erwin's (as best as I can remember) is free of custom content.
If you are looking for urban style buildings, I also like many of the lots by Shakeshaft and Cyclonesue at TSR.

The only lot I currently have up for download is the one with the street parking. As part of our little group neighborhood exercise, I generated a lot of custom neighborhoods. I plan to put some of those up for download very shortly.

(PS - Simmiecal is a girl.)

Thank you simmiecal, I hate assigning the wrong gender to people ;)

Reg and Dylan are working on getting their own site together. It's slow going though, they live down New Orleans way, need I say more?

I absolutely love Reg's houses, she has a southern style of building. Too bad about not being able to get to the official site, Emma's starter houses are great, couldn't do without them now.

By the way, thanks a heap for starting this thread Sagana, now I have more things to look at and download. I'll get you for this  ;D

Why you're very welcome. I just knew you'd appreciate it ;)

<tiptoeing through tsr>

by the by, say hello to my grandson, Jamie... he doesn't wanna sleep so granny can build sims stuff but he's way too cute to be annoyed at.

PS - Your lots are great looking cwykes. I particularly like the farmer's market. What a cute idea. Unless I'm missing something only one of them is in the free rotation right now (grabbed :) but I'll keep an eye out and pick-up the others when they turn out so I can see how the river looks in my hood (I really need some like that - to be a "canal" out to the sea.)

"JadeEliott builds, but I'm not sure whether that's neighborhoods only or individual lots. He or she has the street-parking tutorial posted here, you might find out there."

Jade Eliott does build houses:

http://photobucket.com/albums/b390/JadesHouses/

There are two there for your viewing pleasure.

SimmieCal does the best terrains, just so you know.

Thanks for mentioning me.

P.S.: I am a she. I am surprised folks keep getting this off or putting s/he in doubt, because my name sounds very girly to me. Jade, first name, Eliott, last name. Hmmmm.....

oh my, that Harp House is *nice*. Do you have it available for download?

Yes, do you? *stares at Jade  with puppy dog eyes*

No, I am sorry, I do not.

Alrighty, then. :'(

then may I ask how you got the flat-ish roof? I can build the rest of easily since you have pictures of the floorplan, but I have no idea how to get roofs like that. Which is why I'm so interested in the house...

roofSlopeAngle [15-75]

I lowered the roofs with the roof cheat.

:-)

oh, thanks - I'll have to experiment with that!

You're quite welcome, I like your neighborhoods very much. I kind of concluded that you make individual lots too, but then again, I usually shy away from jumping the gun.

Same with gender. I rather just ask, then assign the wrong gender. Although Jade is a predominantly female name in the english speaking world, in different cultures it might be different. Or, you could be a guy named Eliott who likes the Jade gemstone. Or it could be a completely made up usersame, or....:D

Aww shucks-thanks :-[ *grins*

You can get great starter houses from Around the Sims 2 (http://www.aroundthesims2.com/). They are basic ones from Sims 2 (no expansions) They look pretty good in the neighbourhood too! My girls use them. I just use my own lots-I really love the 2x2 lot size at the moment, and I have made quite a lot of houses (and a cemetary). I just need to get motivated to upload. ;)

Building houses is the fun part for me...I like to use actual houseplans I find online and create my homes that way.  Authentic Historical Designs and eplans.com are two great sites.  I have two homes up for download on my simpage right now (julieanne4678).  They're not starter homes but they are one story and on the smaller side--both are based on plans from Authentic Historical Designs.  The names of the houses are the actual plan names.

When I download houses I usually get them at TSR or the exchange.   

Although I like to build my own houses, make my own sims etc., I still like to download things. However, most of the really nice things I see online require "donations". Although they work hard to make their stuff, I don't feel like coughing up $$$ for just a few objects from a certain site, and don't feel comfortable giving my credit card # (well, my mom's) to random sites. I still periodically check the exchange,but want more variety. Does anyone know of any good, *FREE* (and I mean TOTALLY free, not just some of the items)  sites that are as nice as the PayPal sites? I have searched all over creation, (and continue to do so), and have yet to find a large totally free site with really good quality downloads.

Well, it's a small site, but I really love www.holysimoly.com.  They have pretty much everything for free (except I think maybe 2 or 3 donation items you can definitely live without - IMO I find them to be the worst things on the site).

Great link. I don't think I've seen so many (good) recolours of (good) items! Great layout/format. And it's *free*!
Thanks, Blue! ;)

You're welcome - I'm glad you like it.  If I was to limit myself to only one site of objects, that site would be it.  And all of their stuff looks really good in the game as well.  :)

I bookmarked Holy Simoly - great site :) Thanks everyone, I'm really enjoying all the recommendations, even if I didn't say so specifically (cuz I have trouble keeping up). I'm even managing to get things fairly well of the official site (and there are some lovely houses there, thank you all.) I'll happily spend most of the holidays downloading everything - plenty to keep me busy :)

Not only did I bookmark it, i practically downloaded every item/mesh/recolor on the site!
Thanks again, Blue! ;)

Glad you like them, sorry - I put up a couple of 2x2 and a community lot yesterday and thought I saw them on offer (Simpotence resulted in 3 new lots and a 'hood!) If you want to PM me with an e-mail address and a max file size, I'll zip over a lot or two.  They are 600-1200MB each as I remember unzipped. Or a 'hood with 40 lots in an 11MB RAR file (Not all different!).  I'd love a screenshot from NL about how it looks.  Had trouble with the latest lot where I was trying to hide a pool in the river.  The water level doesn't stay right!

At the risk of getting lynched - TSR has a good business model which means it's going to survive.  Profitable is not totally a bad thing, people.  Look at how many sims1 sites have closed down with content lost forever to those of us who didn't get it in time.   I tried to revisit Persimmon Grove the other day - account suspended.  Felt really sad.  TSR is still providing access to a huge amount of Sims1 stuff.   Wouldn't you rather people put their stuff on TSR than just quit?  Paying is your choice - Being a really penny-pinching individual, I've never paid for anything off TSR.   Bunny Waffles is/was another favourite of mine. Never did build the Victorian baths, got all the downloads though.

We had some links to sites with houses on the sims1 board - can't find them though.  Too busy at Holysimoly (Great link thanks)  EDIT - found a thread with links to houseplan sites - people said they used them for ideas
"Here are some more house plan sites:
http://www.globalhouseplans.com/index.htm
http://www.amazingplans.com/
http://www.stockplans.com/
http://www.coolhouseplans.com/
http://theplancollection.com/
http://www.oldhouseweb.com/houseplans/

And a very interesting one:
http://www.castlemagic.com/color.html

And this one has several links to other sites as well:
http://www.houseplanes.com/g-common2.php?ppid=1040&K=house%20plans

SimMasterAnubis (aka KatAnubis) "

I sometimes use house plans to make houses, but I invariably get so frustrated trying to follow along, I end up just using it as a very rough outline.  I am so boring with my houses anyway, it's so pathetic.

I like one-floor living (better for me to keep track of them), so all my houses have only one floor.  I've made multiple story houses, and I always bulldoze them to go back to 1 floor.  :P

Sounds familiar! I tend to prefer my sims crammed into a small space where I can see them and 1 level is much easier.  If you only have 1 or 2 sims, you don't lose track of them upstairs, but then you don't need the upstairs!

I like how big houses look, but find little use for 4 floors, and 19 rooms. I tend to lose sims in houses that big. I go to take care of one, and the rest of the family ends up hiding behind a chimney. ::)

The idea to use house plans has inspired me! I have already downloaded several plans, and have
already built a house! This is way too fun.  :P Thanks for the idea and links,cwykes! ;)

Hi cwykes

    As soon as I read your message about PersimmonGrove I had to go look and see.    The site is still there
Thank Goodness!    I haven't played Sims1 for quite awhile.  But this is one of my favorite places.

Go here
 http://homepage.mac.com/koromo/PersimmonGrove.html

There shall be no lynching, because, well, who's gonna clean up the mess? :D

I have nothing against enterprise, or earning an honest dollar, but I do strenously object to doing so by trying to pull the wool over unsuspecting or gullible people. But... let's not get into that, it'll only lead to unpleasantness, and will be unproductive.

Truth is, there are many sites out there that offer marvelous items for free. Items that are well done and look great in the game. I am guilty of one thing though; whenever I recommend sites in a predominantly american site, I omit the great sites from around the world. I just assume that americans are not interested in those, and that is very presumptuous of me.

Anyway, here is my making amends. I doublechecked and I'm pretty sure all of them offer english translations. Warning to all though, the english is sometimes neither orthographically nor grammatically correct. So no complaints please. The russian site has the english translations in a bundle right under the russian ones, just look down.

http://www.haksenhausen.de/haeuser.htm

http://sims2ellis.h15.ru/index.html

http://www.einfach-simlisch.de/index1.html

http://www.m-sim-o.com/    (the only german on this site is spoken in the forums, but that's not where the goodies are anyway :D)

Oh, thanks for the "world-wide" ones!

A couple of those I've been too, but several I haven't :) Personally, I love "non-US-English" sites (even without translations). I know a few words of German, just enough to get in trouble or work through where something is and find I can even navigate a Japanese site (not a word of Japanese I assure you) if I pay attention to the letterstrings that repeat and/or if there's a pic here and there. It's not too hard to figure out where "download" is :) and I've even registered on some that have free registration in languages I don't speak (long as they don't ask *too* many questions).

They're so much fun to browse as the worldview is different so likely many of the things available for the sims are too and I'm just really big on"multi-cultural" I guess you'd call. I like diversity.

Yep, they do. Find a community with a lot of non-tech savvy, naieve, gullible, addicted people ready to hand you their money. EA is taking a page from their book and is starting to get in on this business model on a much more regular basis too.

Oh and Veilchen, I must warn everyone that Elis has been known to have some EXTREMELY high polygon objects. I've counted some objects from their site out over 50k.  :o Download from them with caution and absolutely open those meshes up in SimPE and check the count. If it's anything over 10k faces or vertices then toss it. If it's in the 5k-10k range I personally would toss it too, but if you absolutely must have it (a 5k-10k mesh, not one over 10k :P) then use it sparingly.

Yes, indeed he does, although the site has gotten a little more cautious. The older models however do have a high count (ok, extremely high count :)), so download with caution, no matter how tempting.

Thanks for catching that Motoki, I swear I wanted to add that... stupid real life, always interupting my concentration. However, ModernSimsObjects (the last link) have an extremely low polygon count, and their stuff looks great in the game.

Also watch out with EinfachSimlisch, some of their stuff is too high as well. Their polygon count is available for viewing though, just click on the link that says 'download' above the polygon count notification, and open up the notepad that brings up. Too bad really, some of the real nice looking stuff is unfortunately pretty high as well.

Thank goodness! - I had a link to the old site in my favourites folder.  There's a note says the site moved over the summer. 
The non-tech savvy ones are safer downloading from TSR off the official site.  TSR don't have lots with families in that create "grey sims" and they do check the lots out for hacks and you don't find pirated content in them.  EA are going to have to take more resposibility for their stuff if they want you to pay for it.  If I were their lawyer I'd be worried about the pirated content they are already hosting....

They do that now? They didn't used to. At first they said nothing at all about it, then they told all the creators to not upload houses with hacks and custom objects, but it was voluntary as the creators were expected to police themselves. Now I see that have that TSRAA or whatever program because I guess people were bitching about their stuff getting stuffed in houses there. I used to be a good way to get free objects that weren't on free rotation. ;)

Call me cynnical, but if they are checking the lots now, it's probably because they don't want pay stuff in there.  ::) And I am quite sure Steve doesn't check them himself. He probably uses some his unpaid flunk dogs to do it like Evil Kitten and SWWWWWWWWWW or whatever the heck her name is.


Yes, it is rather amusing that they take a no piracy stance and yet host pirated content (from pay sites anyhow) on their site. :P Apparently they've seen to it that the holiday pack doesn't get sucked up into the abyss that is lot files by installing it all to Program Files instead of downloads.

http://thesims2.ea.com/mysimpage/uploads.php?user_id=1923809&nstart=1&asset_type=lot

for NL

http://thesims2.ea.com/mysimpage/uploads.php?user_id=146682&nstart=1&asset_type=lot

Base game and Uni.

Thank you for the mention, Veilchen. If you are interested the Invisible house and the Bothy are on the Uni page.

Joan

You're welcome Joan. Anyone with that much imagination deserves mentioning. I enjoyed a lot of laughs and cackles thanks to your creations.

It says so on the page you have to read before you submit something. They don't catch everything though.  I reported a file with some esf stuff in it and PM'd the creator who didn't realise what had happened.  The fact they can afford do it at all for such a huge amount of stuff is because the site is established and has some money to operate with.

I'd rather he spent his time doing some creating anyway.  OK, no comparison, but would you want JM to write hacks or check files?

TSRAA seems like a good idea.  You give people permission to use that item in their lots. BUT how do you find the damn things again later?  They don't have special codes identifying them as far as I can see.

A lot of people either put "TSRAA" in the item description (both on the site and in the file description for Homecrafter stuff), in their profile, or both. Also, there's a list in the building forum stickied that has a list of all the TSRAA members and links to their profiles.

Jen

So it is still more or less voluntary then. LOL they assume people read. I used to work in customer service, trust me, they don't. :P

I'd rather he spent his time doing some creating anyway.  OK, no comparison, but would you want JM to write hacks or check files?
[/quote]

He actually creates? I've never seen much from him, but the odd house or something but I rather think he spends most of his time sipping mai tais on a louge chair in the French Riviera with all the cash he's constantly raking in.

Unfair! - I think they do try - two bits of evidence:
1. You don't find lots with hacks in on TSR - or I never have.  As anyone can submit you'd have the same mess as the official exchange if they weren't checking.
2. There is a gap after you submit something before it goes on the board.  I bet they run it through a hack scanner or clean installer or something.  They might miss the odd bit of content.  The gap was less on my last few lots, so maybe they check harder if you're a newbie.

Try it - put up one with a hack and see if it goes on - anonymously of course!

I did find some hacks in lots there, but it's been a while since I downloaded any. I actually made a post about it on their boards a long time ago when we first started noticing this was happening with the lots. I posted a link to clean installer to help people view what was getting packaged up in their lots and their little moderator drones deleted it because modthesims2 was an "adult" site. Never mind that it wasn't even on modthesims2, but rather sims2pack.modthesims2.com which is a wholly seperate site that just happens to be on the same domain as modthesims2 because it's hosted by them.

That's when I told them off and left and have not been back to their boards since.  >:(

But anyway, they were made aware of the issue early on but I did still download some houses there with hacks after that. I still be they don't check of it they do he uses the unpaid moderator flunkie girls to do it.

Back to the original topic- heres a new site, havnt actually checked it out yet:

http://www.ogdsims.com/joomla/

About TSR and lots, yes they do scan the lots, but occasionally one does slip through. I've only gotten a couple with hacks. Kath aka Girl-from-Mars is the submission manager, so she is likely the one who does all the scanning. I think they've calmed down a bit on the CleanInstaller, but still when I recommend it to someone I just tell them you can get it on MTS2. Most people know what that is and can find it. Or at least most people don't come back and ask what I mean.

Jen

Back in the day, Pescado and I were over at TSR and used to refer to MTS2 as the site which cannot be named. ;) I don't know about him, but I used to get tons of PMs from people asking for the address of the site. Of course this was when it was still new and not some humongous site.

You're right though, they supposedly eased up on the link restriction a while back. Steve made a deal with Delphy where TSR would allow links if MTS2 didn't allow people to post negative things about TSR and Delphy agreed.  ::)

That was why I left MTS2. :P I hate all this sims political drama crap. I think all the site owners should be like Pescado and hate everyone.  ;D

LOL :D

They have no problem now with saying MTS2 and will even tell people who call it "the site that cannot be named" it's okay. But if you say it as modthesims2 dot com you'll be edited into oblivion :P Blah. I try to tolerate their heavy-handedness but sometimes it's hard. I hate this political crap too. I refuse to deal with it IRL and I'm surely not going to play these games when it comes to something that's supposed to be fun.

Jen

I have to admit, a subscription to TSR is a MUCH better value than that damn holiday pack. Rather than the pay sites driving Maxis, I think Maxis is driving us to pay sites - get something worthwhile for the money :p <tongue firmly in cheek>