Perhaps if you're going to go all out you should put it in the Stories forum? Then you can be as profligate with pictures as you want. (And we'll expose Widespot to a wider audience.) I'm not worried about this thread dying.

A standard downtownie showed up in my Widespot, where I'm testing what should have been an empty downtown that I just attached to it, and I don't know how worried I should be about it. She's the only one - so far - unless the other new teen in that household with no thumbnail is also a standard one...

[QUOTE=Peni Griffin]Perhaps if you're going to go all out you should put it in the Stories forum? Then you can be as profligate with pictures as you want. (And we'll expose Widespot to a wider audience.) I'm not worried about this thread dying.
QUOTE]

In that case, I will continue the story there. Is it OK to COPY what I've put here, to start it THERE?

Thanks for sharing the picture, Grammapat. It looks like Birch has grown up to be a good older brother for Hartless. I can see now that Hartless has his father’s nose and brown eyes. It looks like he has Penny’s cheek bones and narrow chin. He definitely has an interesting face. I think he’s kind of cute in a way. I wanted to reply sooner, but I was exhausted when I got home from work last night. I like the story you wrote as well. I will continue to read it in the stories forum.

I don’t have any more updates on my game right now since I haven’t had time to play. I’ll have some time to play tomorrow and I will be able to get some pictures of my other family that I created for Widespot. I decided to only make two of my own families for Widespot, because I didn’t want to get carried away like I did with my Pleasantview. I’m trying to keep the population in Widespot fairly small. I already have Julien Cooke, Cyd Roseland, Ottomas, Newson, Traveller, Gavigan, Ramaswami and Picaso moved into houses or apartments. The only other sims who will move to Widespot or downtown will be the playable college students and any townies that I decide to make playable. I didn’t add Bluewater Village because I don’t really want to play the sims that come with it again. That’s why I want to create my own shopping district. I want to make it near the ocean so I can have some beach lots.

Peni, I hope you can figure out what happened with your downtown.

I don't see why you can't just copy/paste, Grammapat. You'll probably find that it's okay to have longer posts there, too - people don't open them unless they're ready for the long haul. Surprisingly, I don't go there much - too much to sort through. It's like a general fanfic site; needs more filters to isolate the stuff that's to my taste. But I'll go there to read about Widespot.

Have fun playing tomorrow, Rogue! I've got the Widespot sims and the family bin sims and one family I haven't even played yet in the downtown, Bigg City, and it's already beginning to feel too large - but that's because I want to play Widespot, and Strangetown, and Drama Acres, all at once. And Drama Acres, of course, is huge.

I've posted to the tutorial thread about creating an empty subhood template, which I followed to create Bigg City; so I hope we can work out what's going on there, and possibly turn up some more information on how downtowns work. I wasn't going to think about population till I'd tested all the buildings in play conditions, but I guess I have to now!

Thanks, rogue. Peni - I will wait till I have written more, and then put it all in "stories".

I am enjoying this hood even more than when I tried it the first time, I am definitely sticking with this hood

Harts: The Hart bunch is definitely my favorite family and to my shock it's the group of romance Sims (except for Goldie)! So much happened I'll probably leave a ton of it out because I can't think of it all since I played this 2 days ago. I first gave them all makeovers, Rhett stayed the same, I gave Valentine new glasses, and the girls custom hairstyles along with new makeup and Candy custom glasses. I changed all of their outfits too. These Sims are absolutely gorgeous, and they don't even have much makeup on. Anyways after that, I took them all to the Water Hole planning to get some friends for Goldie, which didn't really work out. Valentine met Heather Huffington (I think that's her name) from Sim State and they just flirted in the hot tub, and I didn't know Mary Land was there, so she was furious at him. Candy started a new romance with another Uni student. Basically everyone on the lot got struck by lightning. At home, Goldie still wanted to make friends and throw a party so they did so. It was crazy! At least one person was over from each household. Candy and Junior were making out, which caused Mary to again lose her other lover. Penny got pissed at Rhett, who not only invited Sandy to move in and WooHoo'ed with her, but proposed to her! So Penny, feeling a little lonely went up and kissed Valentine! I was shocked! Like seriously? Them? Alright whatever you want Penny! So because they were already best friends they fell in love. Goldie just spent her time chatting it up with Scot Land and they became friends so she tried flirting with him and he rejected her. Aww I feel so bad for poor Goldie! How could Scot reject her? She's beautiful and so caring. There were tons of fights going on during the party too, like Daytona attacking Rhett and losing, she hates him after he cheated with Sandy. Mary and Candy attacked each other too! It turned out to be a roof raiser, I had so much fun because I didn't control anything except Goldie becoming friends with Scot and Rhett proposing to Sandy. I love free will!

Beckyboo8 I love the Harts too. Crazy things happen every time I play their lot. Valentine and Penny have somehow become more than friends in my game as well. She's still in love with Rhett in my game though. She woohooed with both of them in one night the last time I played their lot. I feel like Goldie is a bit neglected in my game, but I don't mean for her to be. Every time I try to focus on her something crazy happens with someone else in her family. She is starting to develop a relationship with Anthony Armani, who is a teen boy from one of my created families. She brought him home from school twice so far. Goldie and Anthony only have one bolt of chemistry though, so I'm not sure how long they will last. I will hopefully have a good picture of the Armani family to post later tonight. I will be playing them soon.

Peni, I tried looking through the tutorials last night and I couldn't find the one you are referring to. Maybe I wasn't looking in the right place. I hope someone is able to help you solve your problem with your downtown though. I wish I could help, but I have never made a custom neighborhood or subhood at all yet. As far as wanting to play all of your neighborhoods, I can relate. I haven't played my Pleasantview much since I started Widespot. I considered adding your Widespot subhood to my Pleasantview, but my Pleasantview is already overpopulated. Besides, I like playing Widespot as my main neighborhood. It's refreshing playing a smaller neighborhood.

Grammapat, I will look forward to reading more of your story in the stories section when it's ready. Please let me know when to look for it.

Funny how we all like different families! I find the Harts really boring! I don't play them, other than working out the story behind their lives (which I need for MY favorites, the Land family). Just seems like the more I played them the more interesting "their" story got. I think they are the UGLIEST, but ugly is getting interesting. I'm actually playing Widespot in 2 places, one is as a sub-hood to Riverblossom, where I plan to mix them up with the other famous uglies, the Ottomans (plus the Tricou teens, which I find unremarkable).

Thanks for your interest in the story! I will be spending a week in Texas around July 4 at a family reunion, where I will bring all my notes and write the whole story. I usually get bored so this will be good; unless someone asks me what I'm doing. This is the group where someone will always ask "are you still playing that game?" and then look just like the Sims "gossiping"!

So look for the story in the "Creative/story" section, and see y'all later!

Grammapat, I hope you enjoy your family reunion.

I have a picture of my Armani family. It’s not the greatest picture, but I’m not good at posing sims when I have a large group of them. I couldn’t get close up with the camera and fit all of them in so I had to settle for a picture that is further away than I wanted. Hopefully everyone can still see their faces well enough. The Armanis live downtown. I was thinking of the Sopranos when I created this family so I used some of the character names from that show. The father’s name is Tony. I named the mother Carmen, instead of Carmella, because I liked the name Carmen better. Their oldest son’s name is Anthony. Their daughter’s name is Lucia and their youngest son’s name is Frankie. I was originally going to make Lucia the youngest, but since all of the pregnant women of Widespot gave birth to daughters I wanted a toddler boy. Tony works in the Oceanography career. I ended up having to send him to work with low motives so he came home with a cold, which he ended up passing on to Anthony while helping him with his homework. I gave Carmen the family aspiration as her secondary so she could make some Grandma’s comfort soup for them. Carmen also taught Frankie to walk that day. Other than that, nothing really important happened with this family.



I also played all of the other families that are living in the downtown area. Priya Ramaswami and Trisha Traveller are pregnant. They autonomously tried for a baby with their husbands. Mary Gavigan is also pregnant but she will have her baby the next time I play their lot. I scanned all three ladies and none of them are having twins. So far the only twins who were recently born in Widespot are the Ottomas twins.

I have the same problem. I read somewhere how to take group photos, where they do things like "sit in front of {a sim}", but I can't find info on that.

Lester Gieke brought Woody home from school. Lester is Chester Gieke's alien son. Chester is dead so Lester lived with his parrot, Acryl.
Woody and Lester got along well. Woody was polite and was nice to Acryl. Then when he was going to go home Acryl blocked the door, hovering in the mid air and fluttering their wings (what do you call it when birds do that). So it looked a little bit like a Hitchcock movie when he tried to leave but the bird was in his way! He found the back door finally and then I tried to reset Acryl. But in the end I had to delete the cage and the parrot separately. Lester did not seem to notice anything.

Mann: The first thing I did was give all of them makeovers (don't be offended Peni I just like to add a bit of "me" to the sims, I did that to the Pleasantview ones as well). Lana got the half-pony tail hairstyle and I liked the green eyeshadow. Rich stayed the same. Junior got a less messy but similar hairstyle and different glasses. They hired a butler who made them breakfast and Candy Hart joined them to eat. Junior then surprised Candy with an engagement and Rich fed Lana a bite- causing Rich and Candy to no longer love each other. Good because I honestly thought they were a gross couple! Right after breakfast Candy moved in and they had a wedding party, it was rushed because I wanted them to get married before the baby was born. The wedding arch looked pretty right in front of the pond. Samantha Ottomas, Sandy Beech, Virginia Beech, Rhett Hart, Goldie Hart, Valentine Hart, Penny Weiss, and Woody Weiss all came. It was quite a party! I felt bad because Samantha didn't really have anyone to talk to, Goldie was dancing all alone-- but hey she seems happy fun and single on the outside but I know she's secretly lonely. Then right before the party ended Candy went into labor! A baby boy- with black hair, green eyes, and light skin. They named him Charles (Peni your names are brilliant but I can't think of those) Mann. And it was funny because as soon as the party ended a cab pulled up taking Candy and Junior to their honeymoon leaving their newborn stuck with Grammy and Grandpa. They stayed at the Twikkii Beach Island Hotel for 3 nights 4 days and they had a lot of fun, so did I! I have a rule that my sims are only allowed to try for a baby once a day and every night on vacation no luck! When they returned, I rebuilt and redecorated the entire house and yard to update it will all of the expansions and my custom content. The basic shape of the outside walls of the house are the same. But on the first floor, there is a foyer (with a grand staircase ), family room, study, kitchen, dining room, and a guest bathroom. Upstairs is the master bedroom and bathroom, granny suite, full bathroom, and two more bedrooms (one is currently the nursery) that are connected with a bathroom in the middle of them. At the end of the hallway upstairs is the pet stuff for their new cats, Alegra and Baxter from the pet adoption service. Candy is in love with Charles but Junior doesn't really pay much attention to him. Later that night Candy invited over the man she met at the pool and they made out and stuff without getting caught. Then people skilled for their jobs and stuff for the rest of the night until it was time for bed. Both couples had woohooed, Candy and Junior trying for a baby and failing. I really think Candy and Junior are so cute together!

Land: So everyone got makeovers ya know, the usual. My opinnions on their looks: Homer is actually quite a good looking sim, Beulah not so much... Mary would be pretty if it wasn't for that chin but then she'd also be boring, Dixie is so pretty- but not as gorgeous as Goldie :lovestruc , Scot isn't good looking but there's nothing about him that is a major turn off- except the facial hair which instead I gave him a little stubble. River is kind of cute and plain, and Delta is adorable! The morning at the house was devastating. Mary found out what her special hobby is- tinkering. So she tinkered with the Tv, broke it, and tried to fix it. Her mechanical skill was high so I thought she'd be fine and they can't really afford a repairman. But she got electrocuted causing her motives to plummet and the TV to catch on fire! Her bars got down so low she died of hunger. I was so angry! And upset. On the kids first day of spring break, their eldest sister died! And poor Valentine, even though he's into Penny now I still feel bad because he can never fix their relationship and will never found out that they were going to have a baby. But if they somehow found a way to resurrect her, would she still be pregnant? Anyways after that I moved the family out of their house, deleted the lot, and replaced it with a teeny tiny farmhouse I built. I really think it suits them and is perfect with the greenhouse since Beulah, Homer, and Dixie's one hobby is nature. Mary's grave was placed underneath a tree by the pond. The rest of the day I tried making everyone happy, especially the kids because they were depressed. Beulah skilled for her career and wants, Homer started an affair with Dora Ottomas (I couldn't believe it, she just walked up to him and kissed him! They're a triple bolter too!), Dixie left for college, River taught their two new beagles (Mocha- boy and Caramel- girl) tricks and became friends with them, and Delta watched the sports channel for her special hobby. Scot went out on a date downtown with Goldie which at first sucked really bad, until they had their first kiss! And made out, and fell in love, and decided to go steady and they had a dream date! You go Scot, finally fell for Goldie Then when they returned, everyone except Homer was asleep- he was watching a movie with Dora. When Scot took Goldie up to his bedroom to go to sleep (she accepted for staying the night) Homer asked Dora on a date which I didn't finish yet since it reach midnight and my rotation ended. Wow and I used to not really like the Lands. I love them! I just want Mary and her pregnancy back. Hopefully someone will find a genie lamp!

Well, you know, Dixie's going to college soon (or growing up one), and the Secret Society has a bone phone. The Lands don't have much money to bribe death with, but there's ways around that.

Of course I'm not offended by makeovers. I anticipated makeovers. Heck, I've done makeovers myself - I've changed Mary's hair twice.

Homer triple-bolts Dora in my game, too, but she's with Skye and I don't have ACR so I think we're safe. Beulah and Homer need to snatch time for a date soon, but since Delta just grew to teen and it's early Friday morning they should be able to manage next rotation.

I've tried posting the first part of my story (which will center on the Land family) in the Story thread. Have no idea if I'm doing it right (chapters, pictures) but am waiting for "approval".

Grammapat, I read your story. It was a nice way to start off my morning.

Peni how is your custom downtown coming along? Do you have any pictures of it?

In my downtown, I am slowly bulldozing all of the crappy small houses that don't have large enough bedrooms and building my own. I am trying to build them according to how I remember the houses in Chicago, Illinois, which is where I grew up. I'm also adding more neighborhood decorations, which is something I never used to bother with. I placed alleys behind the houses. I placed some corn fields and farm like decorations in Widespot. I wonder how long it would take the residents of Widespot to travel to the downtown area. I'm imagining it takes them about an hour to get there by driving.

I found out that Dixie has triple bolts with Tom Freshe. I think I am going to have Dixie invite him over and see if anything happens between them. Tom is involved with Emily Lee, but he only has two bolts with her. I think Tom and Emily's relationship is more out of convenience because they live in the same house. I moved them in with Delilah O' Feefe. So far Tom and Mitch Indie are the only sims that Dixie has any attraction to at all. She only has one bolt with Mitch Indie so I think Tom will be a better match for her.

I added Bigg City to my playing copy of Widespot and am playtesting it there. You should be able to see some pictures of that on my tumbler, under the tag "Bigg City."

http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/bigg%20city

Unless, of course, they've changed how you do things on tumbler, again.

Grammapat, did you build a whole picture-staging neighborhood to take the flashback pics, with younger versions of the Lands in it? 'Cause that'd be rad...I know they don't age down well, with all sorts of flaky things happening to the hair and the portraits, if you start them as elders.

I wonder if any of the people on the teams that gave us Strangetown, Pleasantview, etc., ever lurk anonymously in the Sims2 storytelling venues, reading what people did with the neighborhoods they helped create and getting this "Wow, I did that. Somehow," feeling: the whole glad bewildered "Wait, you did what? You went there from that? OMG, you did - I never thought of that! That's so much better than I would have thought of doing! No, no, no, don't do that to my favorite - huh. Never thought that was there but now you show me" rollercoaster.

I try not to make specific comments but sometimes I fail my saving throw. I really don't want anybody feeling that I'm looking over their shoulder or have specific expectations or feel that I'm owed anything. It's just such a trip.

Penni: I've edited the ONE story entry 3 times already! Must get organized and stop doing that. Actually, I added the "shopping district" version of Widespot to Riverblossom; that's where I aged the Lands to adults (and was surprised they weren't bad looking!). I have custom hair that gives elders non-grey hair. This story focuses on the Lands, and is a morality tale about accepting people who are "different", and what true beauty is. I introduce two of the founding families, but they will only show up in the story as they interact with the Lands. In my original hood a bunch of the teens (including all the Land kids except for Delta) have been to college and have started families. There has been a few deaths, and all the elders about to kick off - except for the Lands, who will be around to welcome their great-granddaughter, Sugar. She will be the closing "voice", and after that I may start on the stories of the other families
Added next part: Homer and Beulah are expecting, they are both in 20's, but graying. The next part will find them as they were first created, with 5 kids in a big house.


Yes, she made the apple pie. And I see many more in her future.

@grammapat: Your pictures fail to work properly. You may have moved them or deleted them. Check your photobucket account.

Thanks; same thing in the Stories thread; wonder what causes that? I redid the entries in the story, and will fix THESE.

Peni, I had a feeling you were going to direct me to Tumblr. lol

For some reason I couldn’t get my Tumblr password to work so I had to reset it. Then it took me a while to figure out how to find anything that said Bigg City so I could click on it. I finally found it. While I was there I looked at all of the pictures and read all of the comments. Your lots are nice. It must have been difficult to only use stuff from the base game and Night Life. I laughed at the picture of the gnome inside the plant. I thought it was really cute. I would have left a comment on your Tumblr, but by the time I finished reading everything I was too tired to try to figure out how to leave a comment. It was Friday night when I read it and I had just come home from work. I work second shift and it’s exhausting. I wish Tumblr wasn’t so confusing. That’s why I haven’t done anything with my own Tumblr yet. Lately I haven’t had the time or patience to try to figure out how to set it up. I'll probably have to do a lot of reading in the help section first. It's amazing that I was able to find the help section. I'm just not sure how helpful it actually is until I read it.

I played the Weiss family yesterday. Peni, I took your advice and had Junior Mann give the elixir of life to Penny so I could extend Skye’s life. Everything went well. Skye completed potty training Star and it brought his mood up enough so he could drink two doses of the elixir. There’s one dose left, but I don’t think I am going to use it on him. I am going to let him go when it’s time even though I know it will make me sad. Skye also got promoted to Top Secret Researcher. I think I might have him retire so he can spend more time with his children and granddaughter for his last few days. Is it possible for him to retire if he’s not at the top of his career? I never tried to make a sim retire at a lower level. Either way I am going to have Woody get a part time job until he goes to college. I’m not sure what Penny will do after Skye passes away and Woody leaves for college. Rhett still has no interest in marrying Penny although she still wants to marry him.

Meanwhile at Academie Le Tour, Dixie had her first kiss with Tom Freshe. I couldn’t get any pictures because of the cut scene, but I got a cute picture of her admiring Tom in the dorm cafeteria.

As far as I know, it's possible to have an elder retire at any career level, though I pretty much only retire them once they hit the top level.

As a side note, I've downloaded Widespot, and will probably play it sometime soon, though I have a megahood and another neighbourhood I downloaded running, plus the original Pleasantview, etc etc.

I am so so ADD when it comes to sticking with one thing.

Oh, certainly it's possible to retire at a lower level! Esteban Casa and Nathan Gavigan both retired from the athletic career as soon as they hit elder because they hadn't reached a coaching level and I figure their knees gave out. Your pension's lower but they both lived with their grown kids anyway. Nathan became a full-time Grandpa and Esteban bought Casa de los Widgets and became the most aggressive salesman in town. You could retire Beulah and/or Homer and/or Daytona, too, if you wanted to.

Ooh, like those earrings on Dixie. Yeah, I don't think there's any point in trying to make her (or any other sim with her number of active points) stay slim. Just get her some clothes that are all va-va-voom for her figure and she'll be fine. I've gotten to where I can use tumbler all right most of the time but it still does weird crap to me sometimes. Third party tools help some. It's kind of appropriate that you need mods to run a social interface for simmers...

Play it when you feel like it, Andygal - it's not going anywhere. Or download the subhood version and add it your megahood! And feel free to come back and tell me, I mean us, about it.

Well I played four of the Widespot families today (all except the Weiss Family,

I played three day rotations like I always do so all the women in the families I've played have had their babies, Sandy had a boy named Manly (apparently that is an actual beach in Australia, and when I found that out I couldn't resist the name), Candy had a girl named Sweet, and Mary had another girl named Dream.

Mary is now engaged to Junior Mann, she woohoo'd him, so in my head she's going to do the old "hope the guy can't count worth a darn" thing. They will be married next rotation unless things explode before then.

Gloria got her first kiss with (and subsequently lost her virginity to courtesy of ACR) Scot Land. They have two bolts despite poor aspiration matchup, so I think they'll be getting married after college.

Daytona Beech and Valentine Hart are now in love, and have woohoo'd (again courtesy of ACR). Candy Hart picked up a random walkby and is now courting him as a third lover.

I have plans to have Penny Weiss propose to Rhett Hart, and have him carry it through on the next rotation (she's his One Sim oddly enough).

I also have a custom shopping district attached to Widespot with a few families, so hopefully that will solve the genetic bottleneck. I may also pair Dixie off with one of the Sim State uni premades since she's getting shipped off to college next rotation.

Oh and Hamilton hates Rhett, I think Rhett tried to ACR flirt with Sandy when the Harts (minus the pregnant Candy) went out Downtown and Sandy (wisely) declined.

here is an album with a few pictures. Daytona Beech got full on plastic surgery (with the SimBlender because I couldn't stand looking at her, a bunch of other people got makeovers, there are also pics of two of the babies there.

I finally got around to my Mann household rotation, where we had left off with Lana furious when Rich and Candy kissed right as she was queued up to kiss him. Well, it turns out Rich and Candy did more than just kiss. Candy just gave birth to a delightful son...........

Theodore Mann!!!!!!!! (Who gets the pun? Please tell me you do) Hint: Rich, the other Mann, is the father and not Junior.

I aged Theodore up to toddler because I NEEDED to, but then quit without saving to keep him an infant. He has Candy's black hair, grey eyes from Angel? Valentine? can't remember which, and the best part was he will develop Rich's amazing brow. I didn't take pictures of my cheated age up, but I will be sure to once he becomes a toddler for real.

ETA: I looked more closely at Rich's nearly non-existant eyes and can see that they are indeed grey. So little Theodore (boy, not Theodora) got them from his father Rich, who will likely pass away before Theo even reaches toddlerhood.

Angel's are green; Val's are brown; the only source of gray eyes in town is Rich! Of course Junior has a recessive for them so she still might be able to pass Theodora off to Junior, who I'm not sure will catch the statement in the name - but yeah, that's a mess!