1097 looks interesting, indeed.

Sticky keys always sounded, to me, like the equivalent of jamming up the keyboard's inner workings so that one key was held consistently down, only some programmer managed to find a way to make it even more annoying than that.

I come across it most (in XP) when playing games, particularly if the shift key is connected to something (like, say, fire) that I may want to just hold down, to compensate for my own gamer failings. I get a pop-up saying I have held the shift key for X seconds, do I want sticky keys turned on, etc.

Well, I'm not the one paying for the internet, so I didn't get to choose the provider. (Yes, I have moved out of Kyna's house, I'm actually house-sitting for my father.) I cover the bills that arrive in the mail, but some are set up to pay automatically from either his credit card or his bank account.

On the up-side, it's FREE!

Unless the 'cap' mentioned is a download cap? (I have one of those. If I go over, I spend the rest of the billing period at dial-up speeds. Better than the last one I was under, where if I went over I had no internet until the next billing period.)

Yet.

If your CD or DVD drive suddenly stops working, as happened to my not-computer-savvy father's, you can't say you weren't warned.

Also, isn't this thread about Abobe? Honestly, the typoes of some people!

A small lot would be excellent, I think. The NL townhouses sound great, but is NL far enough back not to be concerned about compatibility issues any more? I suppose if someone uploads the (flattened?) NL version, from a NL game, it should work in any game of NL or later...

Are the lots NL dumped into the bin properly flattened? Those might work...

I actually did the roofing and exterior work earlier in the month, but the interior was difficult to suss out. I had the downstairs pretty much as I have it now, but the salon area actually had a DJ booth and dance floor before. It didn't really suit the feel I was going for, a sort of austerely fashionable place to be. Dinner out under the stars, by the grand piano, fine clothes, jewels, cologne... The DJ booth didn't quite fit, no.

I've been trying to bang out a community lot for half of the month here, it wasn't until recently, at Kyna's (away from my computer) that the final idea hit me. So this one is a bit late, but, hopefully, worth it... I turned it into a community lot because I never quite know what to do with those, and this was the perfect opportunity to try one.

Exterior:




Downstairs:

(There is a slight weirdness with the diagonal fish tank, Sims seem to only recognise one tile as 'tank', and will happily stand inside the tank chatting to one another after poking at the empty tile gets dull. If I wasn't so late entering, I'd fence the thing in.)


Upstairs:






The tower is nothing fancy, just a series of empty 3x3 rooms. I have all EPs, as well as FFS, GLS, Celebrations, and H&M SPs.

Download it here!

Do you really think anyone would still be playing Spore that long? I haven't touched the thing in months, myself, and I was quite excited about it. In the pre-SecuRom days, Kyna used to tease me about it, and the seemingly endless wait. Too much wait, not enough awesome. Lots of 'pretty', tons of that, but pretty doesn't hold my interest for very long.

I certainly could do something like that, but I'd have to add either another front door or make the Sims take a path around the house from the backyard. And the cars would be completely fenced in, as putting a garage door or gate in that kind of fencing looks weird. I could use the pets fence, but I would have to use it on the same level as the apartment, ie, at foundation-height. So, unless I build a proper fence at ground height, there'd be this weird floating fence, if that makes sense?

I'll take another crack at it in the next week or so, once the Christmas crazies have died down, and see if I can't find a less awkward way for the driveway bits to be 'in' apartments. Personally I've not used cars much since the introduction of 'Walk to...', and I stopped entirely once I had 'Walk to work'. But, ownable driveways still make sense for the fixer upper car, so, I'll work something out.

Also, if anyone else has any issues, I suppose now is as good a time as any to raise them. If I'm fixing one thing, I can certainly fix others!

The problem here is that the flats are on a foundation. The backyard fences also have the pets fence buried within them at the foundation level, so that's how they work, but I'd have to completely wall in the cars to have the same effect. I did try doing a proper garage for each, but it won't 'bury' the walls the same way, and I do still need to put some kind of fencing in at the foundation level.

Also, I'm not sure I can wall in around the apartment doors. It would still be common area, because it's on the doormat side of the door.

The driveways are common area. For some reason, most of the cars disappeared on rezoning, but the fixer upper cars remained. I'm not sure what happened there.

I couldn't replicate the real driveway situation (the rear flats have parks that are parallel to the road.) and I wasn't sure how to make each 'owned' by the apartment, though I'm fairly sure the backyards work at least. There wasn't really a place on the front to put a door, besides the one already there.

Note that I recommend locking the back door to 'household only' if you don't want other playables to try and get at the back yards. (If you can lock the doors of other flats, to 'lock for all sims', that might help...)

As for  the 'gaudy' aspect, that's just the Sims. I tried to match the real place as close as I could, but the closest living room carpet was that brown and gold thing. The decoration of flats 1-3 and 5-6 was a bit made-up, I'll admit. (Though I did draw inspiration from #6's huge amount of outdoor plants when decorating that one.) #4 is a bit eclectic, a bit of a mix, because it's based on reality.

Does this include the old favourite, exploding fat meshes, because EAxis did it first? (I believe it was an elder formal dress in Nightlife, though it was fixed in some patch/later EP.)

I felt like building something from scratch, and I'd had this idea knocking about for a while. Flat #4 is loosely based on my own flat, though some liberties have obviously been taken. (I don't have a dining table, or a pond, and everything is highly under furnished.)


The pictures were taken in the residential version.

Flats #1 and #2:


Flat #3:


Flat #4


Flats #5 and #6:


Download the residential version. (Cost: $426,968)

Download the apartment version. (Rent: $4,239-5,234)

Note: I have all EPs. My SP combo is Holiday, Family Fun, Glamour Life, Kitchen and Bath, and H&M.

Additional Note: Certain awesome-ware items (The Cheat, the alarm clocks, bathroom uses you, general awesome-ware) are present, but not included in the download, and should not appear if you lack these items.

Everything else is by EAxis.

This lot has two versions: A house, and a dorm. The house runs to about 250,000 simoleons, unwanded. There really is only one difference between the house and the dorm (apart from the obvious) and that's the gym/nursery. The dorm has a double sized gym, while the house has a gym and a nursery. That's really it.









Get the House.
Get the Dorm.

Note: Lot was created in the main hood, exported, and then relocated to uni for converting to dorm.

AL definitely required (and Uni for the dorm)

You may also need these EPs: Uni, NL, OFB, Pets, Seasons, BV and FT, and SPs: FFS, GLS, Celebration, H&M and K&B

So, I actually wound up extending the courtyard, instead of shrinking it. I think it works.

I should have the lot done and uploaded in the next day or two.

The original walls stay, I know. I was enquiring more about one of this month's special rules, to keep the courtyard. I'm just wondering what's 'courtyard', and what's not.

I have a question, regarding the courtyard. Where does it begin? For example, would it be okay to add a further corridor on the building side of the columns?

The proposed corridor is the pinkish area in this picture:

I wouldn't recommend Pets either, but I do like the floor divider 'fences', I use those quite a bit. I think they came with Pets?

I really think the one EP I couldn't live without is also the one I was least impressed with prior to getting it: Open For Business. Sure, community lot businesses might be pricy for the beginning entrepreneur, but even Brandi Broke can run a home business at a profit. It's even possible to deliberately run a business at a loss, if a family has too much money. (Each EP adds a new money-making thing, after all.)

Kids certainly can gain charisma from the podiums. I have been using macro>charisma to get those last couple of points, and they get them just fine as children, with a podium in the house. (The current family has the base game politics podium, though the I-forget-what-EP legal career also has a podium as the reward.)

Kids have a 'Play' option, but they also have the same 'Practice speech' option as older Sims.

I don't want no overlay. I found a replacement for the evil overlay that I can live with, it's only the good one that bugs me. And even the good one is almost tolerable, on S1. I just can't stand that it makes S4 sims look like they have an extreme case of radioactive chicken pox.

Intentional in that I didn't forget to put a ladder in, but rather opted not to, as it spoiled the look a little. Shiny blue ladders, in that house? No. (Though, drowning sims is a long standing favourite of mine. I've never really been fond of the lock-them-in-a-room death, which is funny, considering my entry.)

Yeah, that's great, if you have a DVD drive... (I do now, as of this July, but I didn't when I was still buying EPs.)


It's okay... The teleport spell is nice, I suppose. I was playing about the other day, and decided to get a Servo into magic. He has the hat and everything, it's kind of cute. He's infallibly good, but he doesn't get the yellow pox that the Sims get, which I think is awesome. I hate that pox. (I haven't checked if there's an evil witch 'skin' for servos yet.)

'That pox':