I'm making this thread behalf all the world creators here at Mod the sims.

When creating a world, I often only consider things that I myself think are needed/great. But lately I have began to think that what if the downloader doesn't like the same things I do...?

So, I'm asking you all, creators and downloaders, WHAT MAKES A GOOD WORLD?!?

To make my share, here are some things I think are needed in a world.
- Nice landscaping (Enough trees, plants, well done terrainpainting...)
- Good roadsystem (Makes sense, both straight and curved...)
- Enough lots for all the planned residentials/community lots/rabbitholes (different sizes...)

I can think of loads of other things too, but I don't want to fill this first post with my blabbing

- Good performance - it's useless if a world is pretty but runs like crap because of textures, routing issues, poor layer setup...

- Attention to detail. I love cute little touches in a world. I hate sloppy terrain painting wonky lot edges.

Attention to detail is really important. I love seeing small little things and being astonished over and over.

And it's really important to me, at least, that there are not only empty lots so that I can build, but that the world also comes with plenty of lots already built on and furnished and ready to move in.

I downloaded a world once that was absolutely beautiful but it had only 3 built lots and over 80 empty residential lots in some of the weirdest dimensions, too. There was just no way that I was going to go through the world and build on most of those lots or plant down lots that I'd downloaded (not that I had that many) every time I wanted to make a new save with that world. I had to uninstall it.

> The buildings have to look like they belong together. Random plonking is not good.

> EAxian rabbitholes are a huge no-no. We should all be encouraging rug use by now.

> At least 100 lots.

> EAxian rabbitholes are a huge no-no. We should all be encouraging rug use by now.

Disagree. I think rug buildings are fine - if they're done well. And so are RH buildings. What I -don't- like at all, is just plonking down a RH and calling the lot down. The RH buildings can look terrible if just thrown down on a lot with no decoration - or really good if they're built-up around and integrated into the landscape. Parking lots, trees, benches, lighting, etc. all help a ton and can make a RH lot go from bleh to lovely.

If you know how to recolor rabbithole, then you could include a recolour with your d/l, so then it would look different from EA, without using rugs, because when I try and use the rugs, the first five tests I do are just trying to get them to be accessible :P

The biggest thing?

Spend more than a week creating a world. (that should have been in all-caps... )

Next is performance. No matter how nice the world is, or how amazing the routing, lots, terrain scuptling and terrain-paint is, if your users can't actually play the world because it takes too long to load or pausing every thirty seconds it will get deleted.

Houses (furnished!) and commercial buildings are needed, as are a large quantity of empty lots (in standard sizes.)

Limit the useage of custom content. A little bit is fine, but unless you're doing some amazing theme world that absolutely needs it, you're going overboard. (For example, a 21st century neighborhood might need little CC, while an ancient or futuristic world might need a lot.)

Detail is important. And not just the big things like mountains or valleys, but also the little things that make the player smile when they see them. Like a small pond near some spawners or a hidden tomb. Just use your imagination.

Size of the world is secondary, but still important. A large world can't be played very well on low-end machines. A small or medium world can't hold as many lots or allow for large distances. So I guess you have to consider your purpose when you're creating it.

One thing that I would really like to see in regards to worlds is way to make it easier for users to download them. One of the biggest complaints I get with Venice is the split zip files are confusing.

I don't know what you mean by rug building :/
If you mean a shell building with a RH rug on it, then yes.
I think that for the sake of creativity EAxian rabbithole buildings are like putting handcuffs on a painter. The first thing I do when I get a new hood is nuke those darn rabbitholes.
For example, the sports stadium in a small backwater town, like my Twinbrook or Neverglade, pays to be a small building. Or even only a room.

Details and Enough lots for my own residentials/community lots/rabbitholes (different sizes...) are probably the two biggest things. The reason why I just skip right over some worlds is because the details are very minimal or there was only enough space for the lots the creator made. I'm talking about there was only 6 lots available after needed RHs and community lots. There was a ton of empty space, just no roads connecting to it. No thank you sir/ma'am

Residentals close together. One thing that I hate about Twinbrook is that they're spread out all over the place. It's easier to meet up with friends and have people come over, etc, when they're close together.

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but what's 'rug use'?

I accept that my requirements are not 'the norm' but for me personally I would love it if world creators uploaded a version of their worlds with no lots at all. Just the bare roads and paths. I can't use CAW as I have a Mac and so can't make my own worlds so the next best thing for me is to start with as blank a canvas as I can and totally build it myself.*Putting the lots where I want them, adding my own neighbourhood objects etc.

Other than that, I agree attention to detail is very important as is playability. I prefer small and medium sized worlds because I like to be able to see most of it at once and also it runs more smoothly on lower end machines.

I also think it would be great to have a few more themed worlds. Perhaps one or two that don't have any roads, just paths, that would be perfect for worlds set in jungle/tribal type scenarios. Or different landscapes like desert or moonscape.

At the end of the day I feel bad for even suggesting things because I'm just so grateful there are kind generous people out there willing to share their creations and I am very grateful for whatever they offer. Thank you all very much.

In no particular order, what I look for is:
1. If all ambitions lots are present, or if there are empty commercial lots for us to place them on.
2. If there is a good mix of prebuilt and empty residental lots, with good landscaping on the prebuilt and very little on the empty. Also, the ground on empty lots should be as flat as possible, because I hate building on a slope.
3. How the layout looks. Are there well-defined areas, such as a commercial district, a rich neighborhood, and a lower-middle class neighborhood? Or is everything all smushed together in no particular order?
4. Performance. I have an older PC, and performance is a huge issue for me.
5. Having full buildings built around a rabbithole object is a plus, but recolors of EA buildings are fine in most cases.

All you have to do is think to yourself, "What do I like about this world? If it were mine, what would I want to change?"

Also, I suggest you pick a group of Simmers to aim for first. Do you want a base-game compatible world that runs better, at the risk of losing quality, or a graphically taxing game that requires all EPs and SPs out, at the risk of making it available to only a select few? Like me, I can't download too graphically taxing worlds, though I do have HELS, Amb, WA, and FLS. So if it's a small world

EDIT: How much players like your world is generally proportional to how much you liked making it. Every now and then, look at your world and say, "Damn, I did a good job."
However, don't make a world that fits others' needs. Make a world that fits what you want. Take a novel, for example. Why did Stephen King write It? I don't think someone came up to him and said, "Hey, can you make a book about an evil clown?"

First, creating for the Sims is a process of trial and error. Accept the fact that you first effort will not be your best and that you will make a lot of mistakes. Making a good world will not happen overnight. Be prepared to do it over and over again as your abilities increase.

Second, play a lot of different worlds. It is unlikely that a good world will just pop out of your head. See what other people have done and copy the good stuff and get rid of the bad. Try to concentrate on playing good worlds. Yes, this means playing the game -- a lot.

Third, come up with something new and unique. Don't do what has already been done to death. Consider that Twinbrook brought an entirely different look and feel, a southern bayou. Please, no more island worlds!

Fourth, play in your own world with a critical eye. I would not want to waste my time on a world that the creator has not played in.

There's a set of "rug" objects for download that mimic the functionality of rabbit hole buildings while letting you build your own buildings around them.

I am fine with EA rabbitholes, though, as long as they're well-integrated, like HP said.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is spawners and collectibles... this is one of the main reasons my sims explore the worlds they're in. There have to be enough, and they should be in logical places... metals and gems in rocky areas, butterflies where there are flowers, grown garden plants and seeds in parks, fish in ponds and ocean, and so on. Every base world collectible has to be obtainable someplace, so the various challenges and opportunities can be fulfilled.

And of course the rare items required for Ambrosia, building Simbots and so forth should be in suitable locations too, with special locations like the science lab and cemetery (or special areas specific to the world) being good candidates.

Hi i read your post. i really like your thoughts And it's really important to me, at least, that there are not only empty lots so that I can build, but that the world also comes with plenty of lots already built on and furnished and ready to move in.

- Attention to detail
- Playability
- Performance
- Compact-ness - I don't know if this is just me, but I much prefer to play a town where the neighbours are really close to you than a huge sprawling town with a mile between you and the rest of civilisation.

- The world knows its theme and sticks to it. For example, if the world is a small desert town then I wouldn't expect to be seeing many large mansions or Wisteria Lane-esque houses with perfect lawns and gardens. If the city is based on, say, New Orleans than I'd expect a lot of French Quarter materials and buildings. The farming town would not have a random skyscraper nightclub towering over some crops.

- Diverse range of buildings and areas. As someone else said you don't want there to just be a middle class family home, a starter home and a mansion reused over and over with just the paint changed. Skid rows, trailer parks, working class, middle class and mansion districts should be included - depending on the city - to have that complete look with lots of options for players. And with their own unique houses. Unless you were building tract suburbs on purpose.

- Creativity with layout and buildings. Let's say I wanted to have a college in my town. Obviously I can't have an actual working one, but I could be creative and have it look like one. A bunch of small houses to act as fraternities/sororities where lots of young adults live. Small one roomed apartments for dormitories. And I might have the town's large library, science lab and stadium close to each other to give it the look of a large campus. Want a trailer park? Have a few small lots with houses designed to look like trailers next to each other with a public space close by. Add a park that looks like a baseball field next to the school. Things like this look great.

- Pre-made families. A few unique families should be included to match the town. For example, if you had a trailer park you could make a trashy family. An urban theme might have a wealthy socialite trying to make it big. Give them their own dramas and backstory.

- Appropriate use of rabbit-hole rugs. I wouldn't expect the tiny desert town to have its own stadium. This is where the rugs would come in handy. Maybe have it so the rug is placed in a building designed as a bus depot. When your sims goes to work at the stadium they have to go to the next town.

- Zoning. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Boring. But if my university course is making me endure this, I might as well put this to some use. Have the zoning make sense. The wealthy district would not be next to the warehouses/industrial park.

- Proper referencing. If you're going to base your world off an actual place from a show/movie/game, then I say to make it look well and appreciated you should research it first. If i was going to make Raccoon City from Resident Evil, I would have it as a Gothic small city, with claustrophobic streets and many labs. If I was going to create Sunnydale from Buffy the Vampire Slayer I would have it as a cheery coastal town with a numerous full graveyards and evidence that something was not right. I know this can be hard, the two cities I just referenced contradict themselves throughout the series, but try your best.

- Leave space for future buildings. You might not currently think about it, but with future expansion packs comes future lots. Late Night requires lot spaces for skyscrapers, bars and nightclubs. Ambitions needed room for their career buildings. So leave some space free.

- Nature and landscape. Unless your world is a desert, put in lots of trees or hills or rivers. Anything to give the landscape some characteristics.

Okay, I think that's everything I can remember for now.

In the sims 2 when I used to download houses I used to get annoyed with having to many rooms for a small family or not enough in some cases. Too much CC used to annoy me too especially if it was a bit ugly. I would have to sit there and change everything which would defeat the object of downloading a premade house. I've never downloaded a world but I can imagine that the problems and advantages would be the same.

This I think is the golden rule for creating for The Sims full stop. Doesn't matter if you make mods, sofa's, clothing, whatever.

99% of my mods are stuff that I have made for myself, stuff that I have found useful, and then decided "hey if I wanted this, maybe others do too." which means I keep them updated, basically because I have to, if I don't then I can't use them myself.

There is one though, that I made specifically at the request of someone else (I won't say which, or for whom because it would be unfair) Almost as soon as I'd uploaded it here I was regretting it. As it was made specifically to someone else's requirements immediately I had people whinging "oh why did you leave this out, I won't use this unless you include this." My attitude was pretty much to drop support for it straight away. The comment I made was basically something along the lines of "Do you know what, you don't like it don't use it, im not making any changes as its useless to me anyway." [/rant]

Anyway, bottom line: Don't make something for other people, make something that YOU want to use.

This is a great hint and solves a big problem I was having with pre-planning of a mountain village world I'm doing next. The stadium won't work at all, but a bus depot or train station is an excellent work-around and fits in. I didn't want to leave it out, lol.

Another thing I thought about that a previous poster mentioned is making available some empty worlds for players to add their own stuff. With the in-game lot placement it's possible now to build a world that can be fully customizeable by the player. You just have to get the roads right and terrain situated so that it's flat in the right places with hills and appropriate terrain paint.

Size matters! I dont make worlds, I just look around and downloads them, so.. I downloaded and tested some really ambitious worlds just to find out they where too complicated. I dont like to download a world with some vague story-line that forces you to play a certain type of sim in some subliminal manner, ´cause Im not in the creators head so I just wont dont get it.
Like the pre-made Sunset Valley for instance. Beautiful sunsets, yes. Realistic streets and houses, not. (Twinbrook is better though, at least the theme makes sense) So if there is a theme, it should be throughout and consistent.

I really like the rabbitholes, so one thing Im looking for is some residential lots built around them that matches, like in a real small city. Straight roads around the "city"-part and curved roads along a coast or in the "country"-area. And realism in general. One thing I would do if I was a creator is to look at some real places in photos and maps first.To get a general feel. And then narrow it down to the essentials. (Real towns have probably grown organically over time!) And of course seedspawners in places that makes sense, sensible routing and such. And lots of true-to-life details could be nice, likebig parking-lots and small dirt-paths where people (sims?) are most likely to take shortcuts.

Tragically, it seems to be impossible with the in-game World Editor to get a lot precisely adjacent to a street without a narrow grass strip. At least, I haven't been able to do it :/ It's not a MASSIVE problem, but it means you can't exactly replicate in-game the lot placement you can achieve in CAW.

Actually they can be put right next to road, without the strip, but not in every world. I suppose it has something to do with the grid in CAW.
I have to be a little selfish again, but in my BIDIY for example, there is no gap between inserted lot and the road.

I'm guessing that for example in Twinbrook, some roads are layed without using the grid, and that would possibly cause the strip.

A lot of guessing, I know... I'll have to test this theory when I have time