Sharing neighborhoods - Simpotence thread

[JadeEliott]

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.*

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

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.

:-)

[BlueSoup]

I like the hood.  Two thumbs up.  

[JadeEliott]

Simmiecal, just saw the hood. Good job!

[simmiecal]

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.

[Baa]

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.

[JadeEliott]

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

[Motoki]

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.

[Andygal]

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.

[aussieone]

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 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! 

[Motoki]

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

[BlueSoup]

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

[JadeEliott]

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.

Like this?



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.

[Bangelnuts]

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

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.

[Assmitten]

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.

[BlueSoup]

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.

[Bangelnuts]

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

[simmiecal]

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.








and the probable deal breaker:



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.

[Bangelnuts]

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.

Looks really nice though

[witch]

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  - 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.



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[eaglezero]

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.)

[witch]

Oh and - I have base game, uni & NL

[witch]

(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.)

*runs over - shoves eaglezero - runs off lot

[witch]

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

[eaglezero]

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 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.

[simmiecal]

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  - and the slums could develop by the river - it'll be the port creating the bad influence of course. 

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.

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 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.  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.





Who needs sleep when we're building a neighborhood?