I have Simpotence

[Motoki]

Jade: I'd love to download Whimsy Valley, even if I had to leave my computer on all night to get it all.

I think I'd want everything the way you set it up though, including custom content heh, but some of it's from pay sites.

Ancient Sim: Yes, she's a woman. My nannies are all mean and hideous. Don't mess with them! And the hair isn't on your hard drive. Well not the exact mesh. It's a rework of the male afro mesh to fit on the female heads. It's based off a Maxis mesh, but slightly modified. The texture is all Maxis though so I can't take credit for it, which is probably a good thing. CocoKisses at TSR did do some recolors for the mesh, but I don't have them. I guess I should have nabbed them on free rotation.

[Ancient Sim]

Well, it was a while before I realised that particular style was hair, I always thought it was a hat.  My mother has a hat more or less exactly like your version, at least she used to (knowing my mother, she probably still has).  It was made of that poodle wool that was all the rage decades ago.  She went everywhere in it and it was highly embarrassing if I happened to be in the vicinity.  My mother has always embarrassed me with her hats.

[Motoki]

LMAO, My mother has a big fuzzy hat like that too. Hers is this tan color with dark tips.

Damn, now all the sudden I want to make tacky assed fuzzball hats from the 60s for my sims. 

[yetyak]

And we can see your nannies peeing while wearing them!  that should be fun. 

[JadeEliott]

This has me all a-titter with excitement.

All a few more suggestions on the table:

I could make a "clean" Whimsy Valley. I would use the terrain and lay out the houses just like you all saw...without any custom content, but most of the lots I use in that terrain are ErwinSims lots and he did not use custom content.

It would have no sims, just the lots. Then we coud share it through email or perhaps upload it somewhere?

Some of Whimsy Valley is undeveloped, just trees and we could keep it that way for expansion as the hood and it's story grows?

As for play, would we all play the same house, passing it about...or each have a house of our own and play the neighborhood story as a whole? I would vote for the latter...so that we control-freaks can have our houses unfold the way with want with the family story, but contribute to the neighborhood story. The hood story needs to be something wide-ranging...

...the only thing I can think of is which family will rule or govern somehow and get to move into the best lot...a power play thing...based on aspiration points perhaps?

I can think of more...*taps forehead* think, think...think, think....

But you can count me in, that is for sure.

Added:

Here's more...we could have all our houses on the same street, like High Street, so that it is easy to find all the families.


Some thoughts:

You know, I think what we all yearn for is a bit of the "holodeck" experience from Star Trek...a way to live in our own stories and have control over them to some degree (not so much to make it boring) but still be able to share and co-experience that with others so we are not playing in a vacuum. We may like this forum because it provides intelligent discourse, but also shared experience. Without other people,  most activities get boring after awhile, no matter how fun.

Or is that just too lofty? lol

[Brynne]

My vote would be the latter, as well. I think it'd be fun for all our families to intertwine. And I don't wanna see Joe or Justin, etc there, either LOL. Confusing enough as it is.
How would we work out the logistics as far as EP compatibilities go?

[Motoki]

Could we trade sims or sim templates too? I think we should have a set of nice looking townies. I am tired of looking at monstrocities.

We could have a base set of sim templates too and then each of us could do an alternate reality with them or we could each choose a family or create one and upload the templates.

Hmm, so many possibilities.

[JadeEliott]

In order to keep from a logistical nightmare I think we would all have to have every EP...or it would just get nuts.

We must keep it simple, or it will fizzle, IMHO...

Motoki, I think making our own townies is a great idea...If we had all used the Sim templates, the genetics could be wacky and it might be a little wild to see the same sim you are playing walk by the house...

If we each create our own family, then we would all have very different people walking by and at community lots, but they would be the sims of the other players...

Just brainstorming...let us know more what your idea is...this could be very fun!

Edit: These are just my opinions, I am open to whatever brilliance you guys come up with...

[aussieone]

This is sounding really exciting guys.

I like the idea of the one house for each player and a neighbourhood story unfolding with everyones quirks and personal touches shared with all. Also the idea of a patriarchal/matriarchal type family is appealing....sort of like the Ewings of Dallas or the Carringtons of Dynasty with all the other families well off but socially just below the 'main' family.  

More aesthetically pleasing townies is a good suggestion too Motoki....though I personally wouldn't want a whole neighbourhood of beautiful 'Stepford' types. Perhaps a small percentage of 'fuglies' just as in real life?

[Metalkatt]

Gee... I really wish imagination was my problem.  Mine's RAM.  The lovely thing about getting a computer for one's birthday is that one doesn't have to pay for it... however, the Sims doesn't run too well on only 512.  All these challenges sound great, though, that's for sure.  Definitely have to mess with them if I can ever afford more.

*resumes lurkdom*

[MissDoh]

Well I would be more than happy to participate in such a challenge but the thing is I don't have SimPe (but can learn fast how to use it), I don't have hacks in my game since for me they take all the fun away (that is just MY opinion) on the other hand some mods sounds really interesting and I am thinking of adding some in my game.  

Except for houses, I don't have any custom stuff in my game, not even clothes or genetics or even Maxis made ones (except for the scissors, I just love them)... I know, I am pathetic but I never was in that kind of stuff, having 20 colors of sofa instead of 10 do not excite me, sorry. So I guess it will be hard to please everyone...  

For me downloading houses with Sims in it is definetely not an option unless you can assure me it would not come along with extra stuff I am not interested in adding in my game... and since not all of us have the same hacks/mods installed it can surely be a problem.  *sigh*

[JadeEliott]

Aussie:

I agree, but they should be ugly made by US!! Their GODS and GODDESSES... So if we all make up to 5 or 10 townies, as many or as few as we like, then put them on lots and use Inge's bush (I always feel a tad dirty typing that.) to make them townies, we should have plenty, depending on how many people are in...

You all notice how I just invited myself to the party? :-)

Heh.

But it is a good idea and I am excited. *blush*


I also really think that having a overall neighborhood goal, such some prize or power that each family is trying to aspire to claim as their own keeps us from getting waylaid and everything getting all messy. It could also gives us lots of opportunity for intrigue, scheming, spying and sleeping around, and trying to get our famiy's kids married to the most powerful family's kids (or at the moment the most powerful...until they are toppled)!

Oooo....the ideas...

Okay, I am going to hush up now and let others give input. Down, Jade. Sit.

[Assmitten]

I have an idea for a story. It's called Whatever Happened to Baby Pam.

Motoki, you crack me up with your ideas and your crazy-ass nannies. That fuzzy hat discussion was hilarious too.

I am so glad you posted this. I am so burned out right now. I am spending way more time here than on actually playing. I think maybe I have been playing for too long...it is so frustrating now. I was a lot more forgiving of the Sims 1, except for the bugginess that was Unleashed. And that was before I even knew what "move objects on" was. I had to go on the official site's chat and ask a bunch of 12-year-olds, who were like, "use the cheat, DUH!" Ah, nostalgia. 

[rohina]

Motoki: We actually won Nintendogs in a competition; I wasn't going to buy it. I'm a cat person, but I do find it quite fun and addictive. It has elements of pokemon and elements of sims. I don't know that I would buy a DS just for that game, but now that we have 2 DS in the house we are really looking forward to Mario Kart and Animal Crossing. I think the real issue with the DS is going to be that it is WAY more fun if you have more than one DS in the house, or you have a friend who has one, because the really great looking stuff is multi-player. I am such a nintendo addict anyway; we have a gamecube and a regular gameboy SP as well.

[Zeljka]

What if everybody started from scratch in an empty (delete all characters empty) neighbourhood and created 2 families. One would be your 'lot' family, the other would be a small assortment of 'townies to be'.
Ie. If my family was 2 adults and a child, my second may be a single parent with a single child. The first family I would play, the second, only as required (family to be exported needs a friend or two, kid needs same)   I would play the family long enough to establish a story, but before uploading, would move in the second family and put them say, in a doorless room.
Anyone uploading it would use Inge's shrub to make the 2 in the room townies and set them free.
Maybe I'm completely misunderstanding this whole thing, but I'd prefer to download other people's homes and have mine living in one according to their means.
Yes? No?

[Issy]

I know exactly how you feel Motoki!  I go through my sims stages, which usually consists of playing only sims for a few weeks, then I will get bored and do something else with my spare time for another few weeks.

I haven't played for about 10 days now (even though I come to MATY almost everyday to read) which keeps me a lil occupied and sometimes I'll read something that will give me ideas to start playing again.  Brynne's sims stories anyone?  

The last time which made me plays lots was when I downloaded Lizzlove's bed, I had so much fun with that it was way cool.

I really like the wildcard idea, would love to play/share any lots or families, count me in too please  

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, I think I said at the beginning of the thread that I'd like to have a go at this - I've never played any kind of challenge before, but this intrigues me.  Personally, I like the idea of each player contributing one house to the neighbourhood - I like neighbourhoods with multiple styles in them, which is probably why I don't play Veronaville!  I already have an idea for a house and a family, and I'll reload my game without custom content for as long as it takes to make it!  (It's so easy to do that now!  - but it means all the characters would have to start off with Maxis everything - is that what people want?)

[seventhson]

Add me to the list of people interested...how many of us have all the EPs? It may be that two 'swaps' have to be organized, one for Nightlife and one for Uni, if lots of people don't have Nightlife.

(Uni + NL here, for the record)

[Issy]

That sounds like a great idea ZephyrZodiac.  It shouldn't be too hard to create families/homes with just maxis content.

I'm looking forward to playing a new hood if this works, Yay!

[witch]

I would find this interesting too. I'd like to contribute a house & family. Maybe not a nuclear family of course.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, I wouldn't have a "normal" family - I find them boring!

Pity about the custom content, of course, I love my Juniper sun walls!

[Ancient Sim]

Just to reiterate what my original idea was - we each create a 'family' (nuclear, roomies, couple, whatever), establish them in a house (Maxis-made preferably - can be changed afterwards) and after checking in Clean Installer for hacks and removing same if present, we upload it to wherever (I suggested the official site mainly because it seems the easiest method).  We all download each other's lots with families in situ and place them in our specially created neighbourhood.  Once we have worked out the finer details, we start to play.  We'd probably need a Yahoo group or something to discuss everything (in fact, we might be able to download the lots from there, or maybe even the families on their own without lots, I don't know).  Preferably all our families would start-off the same in terms of how much money they had and so on, but it probably wouldn't be necessary for them to follow the same careers, these are details we'd have to decide on.  Anyone wanting to join later could do, as this would simply mean a new family had moved into the neighbourhood.  We wouldn't want too many, but there'd be room for expansion no doubt.  As far as Uni goes, personally I'd rather skip that side of it (too BORING), but maybe we could speed through it with mods or something.

My only rule is that if Motoki uploads a family containing someone wearing a fuzzy hat, I reserve the right to remove said fuzzy hat immediately the family is installed in my game.

[Motoki]

More aesthetically pleasing townies is a good suggestion too Motoki....though I personally wouldn't want a whole neighbourhood of beautiful 'Stepford' types. Perhaps a small percentage of 'fuglies' just as in real life?

I didn't necessarily mean beautiful, just more realistically human proportioned. Like not with lips so wide their busting out of their face etc.

My only rule is that if Motoki uploads a family containing someone wearing a fuzzy hat, I reserve the right to remove said fuzzy hat immediately the family is installed in my game.

Aww, darn.

[Vesca]

I just can't get the desire to play the game lately. I think about it, I sort of want to sometimes, but I just can't do it.

I wish I had your mindset about the game right now, Motoki, cause I can't keep my hands off the game and it's keeping me from doing what I really should be doing.  I go through streaks where I can be satisfied with just a few hours of playing to where I can't stop and it feels like an addiction.

[Brynne]

Coolness? So when do we start? lol