Testing the waters: What do you want in a 'hood?
Kyna:
Quote from: Skadi on 2011 January 07, 21:00:42
I use comm lots for skilling since they have so many bonuses, and nothing sucks more than having to go from the arse end of a hood across town to gain a quick level in athletic/at the library.
Agreed. While we're on the subject of accessibility to skilling locations, please put roads near fishing spots. It irritates me when a sim has to run across a lot of terrain to reach fishing spots, especially if it's a low- to mid-level fish they're after. I know I can add the Riverview fishing lot to neighbourhoods where this is an issue, but that feels kind of cheaty to me.
Crazetex:
Thank you all for being so informative. I'll definitely keep all of this in mind.
I never realized that small 'hoods could be so... large. I guess I've been under the influence of massive-yet-tiny maps like Twinbrook for too long.
Sita:
What a lovely idea. I prefer to fill a Hood with my own Sims, but I can see the reasoning for the extra NPCs in workplaces. It does seem a little odd when there is only 1 other person working as a <insert career here>.
I like BIG Hoods. Lots of space; I am playing Bay City right now. I like enough space to be able to add extra lots, if only so I can place some of the poorer families in shacks.
I wonder if a shanty-town idea might work? I saw some TINY Lots yesterday but I can't remember where.
Would agree with the play-able and play-tested requirement for Lots. While I like to build myself, sometimes I just want to immerse myself and PLAY - and that kind of lot breaks the immersion completely.
I think the celebrity (Anderson Cooper? whodat?) idea may not be not such a good one. If I want RL people in the Hood, I tend to search for a good likeness or make one and add them myself. (Guess who had about 8 versions of David Duchovny for S2 and STILL couldn't find one that looked like him...)
JEthel:
Quote from: Crazetex
I guess the most important question is this: would you actually download and play in a world that isn't necessarily inventive, but instead thought-out and hopefully charming/intriguing?
Yep, definitively. I often download worlds, but I only keep the ones I consider 'high quality'. I find there are 3 major parameters regarding world design. They are:
1. Technical quality, and I guess this is mostly about a practical and sound routing design for the world grounds, and good accessibility on the lots themselves.
2. Aesthetic/visual quality: fine ground painting, good trees and objects placement, custom road and sidewalk textures... A good level of details and finish, like addresses for lots for instance.
3. A good theme, or at least consistency in the theme. It doesn't have to be over original indeed (sci-fi, fantasy...), but rather coherent. No obelisk, arc de triomphe or huge space shuttle in small villages usually, even if those objects are available in the meta data list, and SO tempting.
Of those 3 points, the technical aspect is the most decisive for me. A world can be as original, extraordinary, great looking as one wants, if my sims stay stuck all over the place because routing sucks or because they are in a bottleneck, I hate it. Like many here, I'm use Awesomemod and its story progression. This means my inactive sims DO something, go to places. And bad/wonky routing + 'active' inactive sims = lags, freezes and a huge amount of irritation for me. Sooner or later, I will discard the world, as lovely as it is.
Besides this, most of what I like as already been posted above. More small to medium lots, loads of starter and average homes, sub-hoods with their own identity and their own set of proximity community lots if the world is large enough to house them, tested lots and tested world.
For the population, do it if you want to. But if you chose to include sims, the bios and household descriptions are kind of a must for me.
Quote from: Crazetex
How easy/possible is it to have designated playable sims be pianists/mixologists/etc.? Are they only NPCs? Obviously I still have research to do before starting this project; I haven't had Late Night for very long
As far as I know, pianists, mixologists and the likes are homeless sims, so unselectable and unplayable. I have absolutely no clue if it's possible to mod those roles to be selected among the playable pool. Anyhow, it doesn't even mean that the role would stick to the playable sims. Register clerks and the stylist are roles tended by playable but inactive sims for instance. As soon as you select a household with one of those sims as your active lot, this sim will 'lose his job' and another unemployed inactive in the right life stage will be selected to manage the register (or the stylist station). You can find a great tutorial here about pre-populating: http://www.simswiki.info/wiki.php?title=Tutorials:Populating_CAW_Worlds
Simbots, mummies, ghosts, red-green-blue sims, celebrities and vampires are all welcome. I can always nuke what I don't like, so feel free to create what you like.
So, good luck with this project, and loads of patience and perseverance with CAW!
Crazetex:
Continued thanks are in order. All of this information is terrific and useful! Thanks for the link to the "Populating CAW Worlds" wiki especially, JEthel.
A guess a mini-update could be made:
-Looks like I'll do bios for everybody! It's a great place to hide easter eggs/clues, at least
-There will definitely not be Anderson Cooper
-I've thrown out the first two worlds I made in CAW. I'm worried about distant terrain - it's pretty, but the suggestions here had caused me to experiment with small worlds. This doesn't leave a huge amount of space for rolling hills miles around while still having decent non-camera routing! What are people's thoughts on having limited distant terrain with a consolidated area like the 'hood posted by Zazazu above? (Or am I missing something?)
-Between my own views, the views posted here and how I got pissy at Bridgeport last night trying to move some guys to a new cheap lot, the world will most definitely have a focus on cheap to average cost homes for residential areas
-Should every community lot with an interior have a bathroom? Should there be outhouses on some distant lots?
Some screenshots of a tiny laundromat - the Cleanette Laundry Facility ("the Whabam! power of Cleanesque in a small-town format") - I made that will be in this world, most likely with some adjustment, less BLUE and actual exterior decoration:
I made it quickly for myself because I could barely fit the Twinbrook one in Bridgeport and its non-existent free space ("we're going to let you place lots down like in The Sims 2! Too bad there's no room in the worlds, especially not the new ones") and because I really needed a public chessboard; I couldn't find one in all of Bridgeport.
Any complaints about my need to practice building can be responded to with "yes I know, that's why I'm practicing before actually crafting this world."
EDIT: I've been doing a lot of reading, and it looks like in order to create the kind of lived-in, pre-made soap opera world I'm planning on I should share this as a save file as opposed to a world file. While the mods that allow Edit-in-World to manipulate Sims are fairly powerful, I'm interested in something even deeper - possibly even letting the game play out for a while. Is this an absolutely horrible idea? Are there any technical issues I should worry about/that mean I should avoid sharing as a save completely? Does this cause you to scoff at me?
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