More Awesome Than You!

I've noticed in Sunset Valley that some of the 30x20 lots appear to be oriented as a 20x30 but they are labeled 30x20. And visa versa. Am I misunderstanding a basic assumption of the way the game labels the lots? And on the 25x30 lot, neither a 30x20 nor a 20x30 house would orient correctly.

I think the labels may be arbitrary and no convention is necessarily adhered to. Alternatively, the lot could simply be completely warped. It's entirely possible the lot is actually standing on its end or has fallen over and is lying on its side.

Looking at the map it appears that the 20x30 designation is reserved for lots that only have street access on the 20' side.  If the 20x30 lot is on a corner it uses the 30x20 since the 30 side does have street access.

Hope that helps.

Yes, I thought that too. Let me see if I can figure out how to take a picture and keep the interface to demonstrate which lots have confused me.

edit: As you can see, these lots must be oriented the same to both be "on" the road. And yet they are labeled differently.

(http://gethanesims.prismbaby.com/images/sims3/20x30.jpg)

(http://gethanesims.prismbaby.com/images/sims3/30x20.jpg)

The labels don't make any sense.  The bottom picture is clearly 20x30, even if it saw otherwise.  As for the 25x30 problem, I don't have a clue.  Which lot is that anyways?

I noticed the same thing awhile back when I started populating my first serious neighborhood.. It's pretty ridiculous that two lots listed as the same size can be of a completely different rotation from the other, or that two lots that show as being slightly differently sized end up being exactly alike. I have to seriously wonder what they were thinking when they laid the lots out in the neighborhoods, since they follow absolutely no sense of logic to them..

This sounds exactly like TS2.  The lots had an internal rotation which determined which of the two measurements came first and which came second.  People often assumed that the measurements were width (frontage) x depth, but it was never true.

Why would EA bother to change something which was already completely absurd, when they could spend their time mucking up stuff which used to work instead?

It's possible that the Myrtle Bungalow was built on a 30x20 lot and placed on a 20x30 lot causing the description size of the empty lot to be replaced by the description that came with the house.

If the mailbox were on the long side of the lot, that would make sense, but it's not. it's on the short side, meaning that the lot dimensions should be 20 x 30, not 30 x 20.

Honestly? I never noticed this in TS2. But it didn't really matter there either, since you could actually place your own lots in TS2.. Here it's a lot more noticeable, not to mention a lot more annoying.

Not to mention the non-standard lots. I've been checking out a lot of lots because I wanted to find a good building base one. I did look at the Bistro lot but at 16x18 it's just too small for me. Some lots are 29x30 or 25x30, I think I've even seen a 28x30. Why?

The lot size description/orientation means nothing in TS3. Put the mailbox where you want the front, and they will use it as the front. Try it in Riverview on the lonely house on the highest hill, above the town: put the mailbox beside the small path leading up the hill, and they wont use the road behind the house, EVER. The cars will stop below the hill, and the sims will run up the path to the house, every time they were out in town.

I also thing that nothing in the TS3 lots make sense. It seems that they name them while sleeping. I played the Goth family and when you see the house you notice immediately that firstly someone tried to build the TS2 Goth house. Well, everytime you rebuild a house you make it different automatically. It seems that they started the old house, it didn't come exactly as planned, then they rotated the lot and the front of the house became one of the sides and another entrance was build in the "new" front that looks much more to a back exit. Most of the houses seem to be build alleatorily. I hate the 3x4 bathrooms with cheap plumbing. Enormous 3 or 4 etage houses that don't have bedrooms enough for the ones who live in it - and they plop up a lot of babies that don't have a crib or anything to be raised into.
If it is 20x30, 30x20 or 60x60 makes no difference.

The large homes in Riverview are the perfect example of this. There is one notable one that is on a huge lot (50x60, perhaps), takes up most of the lot, is two stories, but only has one bedroom. Um, what? Externally, EA has gotten much better at their house building. Internally, it's all the same.

I wasn't going to touch house building until I could have my truly custom neighborhood, but after three generations of staring at the same neighboring households in their inefficient dwellings, I couldn't take it anymore. Last night, I rehabbed a 30x20 lot from one bedroom/bathroom that only slept one to a three bed/two bath that sleeps five plus larvae. It looks better. It works better. It costs less.

My biggest pet peeve by far; mansions that in real life would have 12+ bedrooms end up with one or two so large you could fit a whole house in them.  Having only one sim living there seems a good enough excuse for Eaxis, but I like guest bedrooms, and would probably end up evicting the premade sim anyways so I could use the house for my own purposes.