Rave about starter homes and 20k? Loan, we need loans!
jjsy:
just crossed my mind... you know, with the loan system, it would be possible say for a family to moved into a lot on loan, then one sim takes the cash and makes his or her getaway... leaving the rest the of family with no cash AND debt.... imagine the extreme case, everybody moved out except a soon-to-expire elder.... whatever will happen to the debt after the poor sim finally takes the last journey?
Somehow, this makes me very, VERY creepy... *shivers*....
I found that I agree with a lot of what Kyna said.
The whole point is to avoid the trashy "temporary" period where the family is living in some shack. Note that this is DIFFERENT from stuff like trailer (courtesy AmberDiceless) because I think trailer life can be a very interesting theme! It is "permanent" so as to speak. I'm talking about temporary lots where we don't like, don't have passion with and simply forced into it due to money woes.
Concerning loans, I'm leaning towards IJ's shrubs atm, it being a build/buy time item rather than an interaction mod that probably involves global scripts/data? The forced payments thing I think COULD be possibly added to IJ's work too (I think. I could be wrong due to ignorance), the simplest will be to instead of charging interest, it can be made to pay actual amount and maybe somehow decreases its counter or something until it is fully paid back? And I think somebody should definitely work on a nicer more "loany" mesh to replace the shrub. Some loan contract or document that can be placed on table or placed in inventory or hanged on wall to remind the poor sims of their debts will be good (if we're really evil, make it lower environment attractiveness!!).
Concerning starter buildings, another possibility, (but prob not very feasilble right now) is some means for a builder to store "building add-on modules" as scripts?
So a "starter" may consist of one main building with maybe just the first two floors. An add on, when bought at later stage may "extend" the building to third floor and modify some of the architecture maybe to include a new side building. That way, all the buildings are still designed by the same person and have the same theme. Another interesting dimension is to visually see significant housing improvements other than just furniture or forced the player to do his/her own DIY work which may be troublesome or "ruin" the original style. Yeah I now, too far fetched for now... but sometimes I think, why not... even nicer if it can work with the lotadjuster to include additional land as an "upgrade".
Rascal:
Quote from: jjsy on 2008 April 21, 02:15:15
Interesting resources pointed out. I;m taking a look at IJ's mortage shrubs. Looks very usable except that it.. well... looks like a shrub .. (was hoping for something more reminding of the debt status like a mortage contract or something. sounds kindof silly if a shrub starts deducting money) and that there's no grace period. Maybe when I can draft out enough stuff I can try to bug IJ for an improvement?
I use dentedtrain's Loan Paintings & Investment bonds. http://forums.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=122224&highlight=painting They are based on Inge's mortgage shrubs but are perhaps more in line with what you were wanting?
pbox:
Quote from: Zazazu on 2008 April 22, 04:51:19
The reset kind of annoys me, but I use Paladin's Season changer to at least remove that weirdness. I can ignore the day of the week being wrong.
I always change the day of week with the LotSyncTimer, do you know that that's possible? It's under TimeWarp, after all those warnings .. but to me it looks like the day of week is more or less a cosmetical issue, particularly when they've just moved in -- changing it does not change the actual day (day 34 remains day 34 I mean), only the name -- so I don't hink there's reason to worry. In any case I've never seen any problems with it.
Quote from: jjsy on 2008 April 22, 06:59:35
Concerning starter buildings, another possibility, (but prob not very feasilble right now) is some means for a builder to store "building add-on modules" as scripts?
So a "starter" may consist of one main building with maybe just the first two floors. An add on, when bought at later stage may "extend" the building to third floor and modify some of the architecture maybe to include a new side building. That way, all the buildings are still designed by the same person and have the same theme.
I've done something similar with some of my earlier starters (available @ mts2, I think Newbie Road 65a/b/c is a good example) -- they're available in a few different versions, smaller and slightly expanded ones, so that people could use the big one as a kind of blueprint when they want to expand the smaller house. I have no idea whether anyone actually did that, though =).
cwykes:
Quote from: jolrei on 2008 April 21, 20:06:48
Quote from: Ellatrue on 2008 April 21, 19:25:08
My main objection with the game is actually with how quickly the house depreciates. Once you move them into their starter home, they are pretty much stuck there because of how much the home drops in value.
That's a good point. Even with the current downturn in real estate markets in the US and Canada, latest projections I have heard is that the housing market is merely "slowing down" not crashing, and houses are still appreciating in value, not depreciating. Only on the sims can you end up invariably losing money on your house.
Think of it this way - It isn't the house that depreciates, it's the furnishings. Sims are forced to buy new furniture whereas we started out with cast offs from around the family and they got the new stuff!
Quote from: jjsy on 2008 April 20, 07:39:16
... imho, a "starter" lot should contain at least the bare minimum for civilized living, some items listed in order of importance.
0) phone (curse all the "starter" lots that doesn't even leave enough $$ to buy a DAMN PHONE!!!!)
1) toilet (before somebody counter this, remember the word "civilized"??)
2) bed
3) bath/shower
optional but highly recommended:
4) kitchen stuff (fridge + at least microwave)
OK I agree about the phone, but you could argue a bit about the other items as long as there's money to buy them.
If you put toilet, shower and fridge in a starter home, you have to sell them and rebuy them to give your sims those first few aspiration points to get them going when they move in. Same goes for a bed, bookcase, bar etc depending on sim personality. I never buy any cooking appliances for sims until they've all earned a few cooking points. They can live on lunch meat sandwiches for a while and chef salad when one of them has 3 asp points. I never buy microwaves at all unless a fortune sim insists - then it goes on a corner where they can't use it. Why include washbasins? - they just offer sims a reason to linger in the bathroom! I get irritated by builders who never remember to put lights in the rooms! Or put in a cooking appliance without a fire alarm!
Quote from: AmberDiceless on 2008 April 22, 01:50:51
http://ambular.djssims.com/index.php?category=1&subcat=6
The three trailer homes there are my attempt at getting around the issues you describe. I used a combination of Pescado's Magic Wand item, some building tricks including using unlocked foundation walls in place of the regular kind, and a few cloned Maxis walls and floors set at a value of zero to get them all in under $20,000 at a more or less reasonable size, while including all the basic necessities plus a few small extras on each lot.
Like Amberdiceless I used Pescado's magic wand to build a set of <20K homes. I wanted some retirement cottages for elders though and they don't all work as starter homes. Because everything is fully depreciated, the sims can't actually afford to change the house to suit them and are stuck with my 'granny' choices until they earn some money. I don't use the foundations, because a) they cost money and b) houses are easier to play when there's only one level. They're free on TSR. http://www.thesimsresource.com/profiles/view.php?mid=427711
Zazazu:
Quote from: cwykes on 2008 April 22, 14:22:05
Think of it this way - It isn't the house that depreciates, it's the furnishings. Sims are forced to buy new furniture whereas we started out with cast offs from around the family and they got the new stuff!
Mine sometimes take stuff from home. It depends on what resources the house has. If I want to upgrade furnishings in a house (I'm slowly doing that with the farm lot) then I'll put a dining set in one kid's inventory, an old bed in another kid's inventory, etc. In larger houses where there are more kids and everything's kind of established, they don't get anything.
Quote from: jjsy on 2008 April 20, 07:39:16
... imho, a "starter" lot should contain at least the bare minimum for civilized living, some items listed in order of importance.
0) phone (curse all the "starter" lots that doesn't even leave enough $$ to buy a DAMN PHONE!!!!)
1) toilet (before somebody counter this, remember the word "civilized"??)
2) bed
3) bath/shower
optional but highly recommended:
4) kitchen stuff (fridge + at least microwave)
I look at it in the light of what you get when you rent an unfurnished apartment:
- toilet
- sink
- mirror
- bathtub/shower
- couple of counters
- stove
- refrigerator
- lights
You don't get a phone included in a new place. I don't even have a "real" phone. You don't get a bed, or a couch, or any of that sort of thing. You bring/buy your own. Generally, you don't get a microwave. I rented one place with an included microwave, and it was so tiny it barely held a cup of tea, and it was perhaps 2 watts. Never used it.
Quote from: cwykes on 2008 April 22, 14:22:05
Like Amberdiceless I used Pescado's magic wand to build a set of <20K homes. I wanted some retirement cottages for elders though and they don't all work as starter homes. Because everything is fully depreciated, the sims can't actually afford to change the house to suit them and are stuck with my 'granny' choices until they earn some money.
I use this lot by Witch, with slight modifications. I first had my builder sim, who I use to carry a floorplan album so that I can reference those photos in the game, occupy it, and then moved a few of the townie elder sims into it. Whenever I do a townie aging rotation, I do it there, and the graves are moved to the graveyard and I keep about half the new elders for the retirement home. Then any playable elder I want to move in there can and takes an empty room. There's built-in drama (Elders on ACR). Having a retirement village would be nice, but it doesn't really fit in with either of my 'hoods, especially the one I'm playing now. Space is going to be a premium this generation, and it's only the third. This assumes two more community lots before gen 4 gets old enough to move out on their own. Next gen things are going to start getting bulldozed and replaced by duplexes, then in one more I'll start having to do apartments and 1xX homes.
Quote from: jjsy on 2008 April 22, 06:59:35
just crossed my mind... you know, with the loan system, it would be possible say for a family to moved into a lot on loan, then one sim takes the cash and makes his or her getaway... leaving the rest the of family with no cash AND debt.... imagine the extreme case, everybody moved out except a soon-to-expire elder.... whatever will happen to the debt after the poor sim finally takes the last journey?
Somehow, this makes me very, VERY creepy... *shivers*....
Thanks for the inspiration! :P I need to seed some more hatred in my 'hood. Kids are getting along a little too well, even with the Mayor's kids talking about how poor and uneducated Rose (shack-liver's eldest) is behind her back.
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