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Lab Assistant
#24951 Old 27th Sep 2020 at 10:45 AM
Quote: Originally posted by simmer22
25+++k is high for anything. Use very sparingly. If you play without shaders, CAS items don't seem to tackle anything above 30k, and will show up invisible (the limit is a bit unclear, but seems to be roughly between 25 and 30k). If you play with shaders on, the CAS items will usually work fine, though. Buy/build doesn't seem to have the same issue with disappearing items. EDIT: This area and above could possibly also be the reason for items not showing up in family loading screen.

15-25k depends on the item, but is relatively high, especially if you use large quantities of them, so use sparingly.
10-15k depends on the item, but tends to be fine (just don't go completely overboard).
5-10k is usually fine.
5k and below is in the "no worries" zone.
2k and below is in the "absolutely no worries" zone (more so if you get below 1k).

I'd say the same is true for both CAS and buy/build. It's more a quantity thing - you can have a high-poly item (or one or two with larger textures), you can have several, but at some point it gets out of control and you have 100+ items with 30+++k polys and 2048x2048 textures on the same lot, and the game crashes or starts pink-flashing out of exhaustion. Some caution is adviced. Some computers can handle it, some can't.

Thank you, very interesting! Since I would only need that 21k statue for 1 lot and only place it there 1 time, I guess I should be fine then.

Quote: Originally posted by joandsarah77
I was tempted by a 22K hair yesterday but decided not to get it, it's too easy to add on a hair + some jewellery and end up with a 40K walking pixel.

I don't tend to use a lot of jewelry, but I've been thinking about this as well.
I've been downloading and collecting tons of CC for when I finally have a computer to play TS2 on again, and most of the hair and clothes I have now are 4t2 and 3t2 conversions.
The last time I was able to properly play TS2, I think TS4 didn't even exist yet and most of my CC was much simpler (but also less pretty...). I'm very weak when it comes to TS4 clothing conversions... but since I mostly download clothes that were converted from the game/expansion packs, I tell myself that the polycounts can't be that bad and I hopefully won't run into too many problems when combining them with various hairs, jewelrey etc :p


And a random question: Do I just place the argon archfix for the broken face templates in my regular Downloads folder? I don't see any instructions with the download where to place it, so I assume it just goes in there, but I don't remember anymore where I used to have it in the past.
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Theorist
#24952 Old 27th Sep 2020 at 12:15 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Annaminna
Have you checked batbox if there is "Remove stuck UFO" option? It was what helped me on same situation.

@Annaminna
Yes, I did. I have never get that one on the Batbox in 16 years of play.

Quote: Originally posted by joandsarah77
No I can't either.

Did you check the Batbox? Also check hood deco, one time I blocked a portal with a hood deco tree. Yep, that's a thing.

I guess after that it might be time to back up, remove CC and test.

@joandsarah77
I'll try with no CC at all. I'm now wondering if the hood deco fences can cause the issue.

@quweenie
Quote:
Do I just place the argon archfix for the broken face templates in my regular Downloads folder?

Yes, you can.
Mad Poster
#24953 Old 27th Sep 2020 at 12:36 PM Last edited by AndrewGloria : 27th Sep 2020 at 12:58 PM.
Quote: Originally posted by sugoisama
Is there a popular gay pairing for Kent Capp?
So yeah, tl;dr: Bald male in early 30s looking for single male in his area to possibly have a family with. Makes bank at lab. Can cook.
@sugoisama : In our Veronaville, I made a townie boyfriend for him in CAS. At the moment he's still living with Regan and Cornwall but he plans to move into the house next door (in downtown Custer Boulevard) with his boyfriend Daniel soon.

Do you have the Veronaville townies? If you have Tarlia's (aka meetme2theriver) Veronaville, then you won't have them, but you can download them from my LiveJournal (LJ) (link in my signature). I don't think I've made any of the adult male townies playable, but most of the male teens are now playable in my game, and most are gay. (After some gay experiences, Keith Cormier is trying to "go straight" with Mallory Mace.) Jihoon LeTourneau is possibly the most interesting of them. I find him a bit of a "still waters run deep" sort of character. He might make a suitable mate for Kent. You can age him up, unless you're happy with an adult-teen relationship. If Kent prefers a more "rugged" look, he might like Amar Larrea. I'm afraid that Ralph Enriquez was rather obnoxious when I first met him, and I had to give him a lot of extra Nice points to make his behaviour acceptable. He's now Jihoon LeTourneau's boyfriend and wears pink shorts instead of baggy jeans! He's the only one of the four who is still a townie in my game. In my own arrogant opinion, Veronaville really needs its townies to be complete. I also couldn't imagine it without the numerous CAS Sims I've added.

In my game Kent now wears a ridiculous turquoise "emo" hairpiece, and a black shorts suit, with very short shorts and bright red shoes that I downloaded from a Russian website. I'll try to find a picture of him, and post it in the pictures sub-forum.

I hope I'm not too late with my reply. I was just too tired to post last night.

All Sims are beautiful -- even the ugly ones.
My Simblr ~~ My LJ
Sims' lives matter!
The Veronaville kids are alright.
Mad Poster
#24954 Old 27th Sep 2020 at 1:32 PM
My Kent's got a thing going on with Cyd Roseland right now. It's quite adorable to watch.
Alchemist
#24955 Old 27th Sep 2020 at 3:40 PM
Quote: Originally posted by AndrewGloria
Do you have the Veronaville townies? If you have Tarlia's (aka meetme2theriver) Veronaville, then you won't have them


Also, I made a hood that has MeetMe's fixes with the Verona townies. On my simblr. https://sunradersimblr.tumblr.com/p...na-with-townies

Hey, did you see the lot-visible PV bridge I made? I made it easy to place, too, remembering what you said.
Alchemist
#24956 Old 27th Sep 2020 at 7:47 PM
Quote: Originally posted by sugoisama
So yeah, tl;dr: Bald male in early 30s looking for single male in his area to possibly have a family with. Makes bank at lab. Can cook.


I'm surprised Kent is having so much trouble; as an Aquarius he should be able to get a three bolt match easily with a Capricorn. Idk your hood set up, what subhoods you have or might be planning to add in the future, etc. But I do have a spreadsheet of all the Premades handy. So. Here's all the premade Capricorns: Loki Beaker, Circe Beaker, Tank Grunt, Lisa Ramirez, Stephen Tinker, Wanda Tinker, Opal Contrary, Rick Contrary, Marcus Baldwin, Jason Cleveland, Carlos Contender, Martin Ruben, and Brittney Upsnott. From that list, it looks like Martin Ruben would be your best bet if you have SSU attached, as he's Knowledge, too. Not sure if he's gay in your hood, but storywise it makes a lot of sense because Heather has a hard time winning Martin over (at least she always does in my hoods). Perhaps Martin is always reluctant/pushing her away because he's gay. Here's his bio from the wiki: "Martin can hardly believe he's really related to a frat member. Rather than dwelling on it though, he keeps his nose to the grindstone, hangs out with his roommates and tries to avoid the sorority girls."

Otherwise, we can look at Virgos, who are attracted to Aquariuses, and Sagittarii who Aquariuses also like. Virgos are a little tricky as Aquariuses don't like them; but I suppose if aspirations were compatible, they'd be fine. The list isn't great though, as Kent is related to all the premade Virgos in Veronaville--Regan, Cornwall, and Hermia. It could be an interesting reason why Cornwall picks on Kent all the time (because he's secretly attracted to him), but it sounds like Regan's story is set and you don't want to mess with that. With the other Virgo options being Dirk Dreamer, Cassandra Goth, Coral Oldie, Daniel Pleasant, Ophelia Nigmos, Denise Jacquet, Melody Tinker, Elizabeth Aspir, Benjamin Baldwin, Chastity Gere, Geoff Rutherford, and Castor Nova, it looks like another SSU resident (Castor) is your best bet here if you're not playing an uberhood. For Sagittarii, there's Dina Caliente, Lola Curious, Lazlo Curious, Ripp Grunt, Patrizio Monty, Mercutio Monty, Oberon Summerdream, Titania Summerdream, Leod McGreggor, Issac Bell, Hannah Bell, Natasha Una, Gavin Newson, Jimmy Phoenix, Heather Huffington. I know you said you didn't want to pair them up, but now I'm curious what Kent's and Mercutio's chemistry would be.

Looks like if you have SSU, then you can pair him up with someone from there, but otherwise, yeah, you might have to make him a townie. It doesn't have to be forever though; you can just put him on the back burner until someone appropriate comes along.

"May the sunlight find you, thy days be long, thy winters kind, thy roots be strong." -Grand Oak Tree, DAO

XPTL Mod Archive | Change a Mod's Mesh into a CC Object | Increasing the Game Difficulty | Editing ACR 4 Your Age Mod
Bored? Read an unfinished legacy or sim story. | aka Kelyns | she/her
Mad Poster
#24957 Old 27th Sep 2020 at 9:06 PM
I like to pair Kent with Nervous Subject. They don't have amazing chemistry, but it's good enough with turn ons set appropriately, and knowledge/family is always a solid pairing. But again, that would require playing with a combined neighborhood, unless you wanted to clone Nervous and say he'd run away from Strangetown and washed up in Veronaville. Keeping in mind that I'm happy with a zero bolt couple if they are fine with being together, usually they have two, which is plenty.

Pics from my game: Sunbee's Simblr Sunbee's Livejournal
"English is a marvelous edged weapon if you know how to wield it." C.J. Cherryh
Forum Resident
#24958 Old 28th Sep 2020 at 5:23 AM
This may be the epitome of stupid questions, but I do want to know since it is not at all how I play my game. What are players' fascination with playing (and replaying) the Maxis neighborhoods?

I think I played Pleasantview briefly when I first got the game and maybe played the Calliente sisters briefly but once I got the hang of the game and how it differed from Sims 1 (where I had played the Newbies' house for more than 100 Sim days), I quickly moved on to making my own neighborhood, creating multiple Sims families of my own and never looked back. I am up to N010 now in my hoods with my created Sims generating their own storylines and their own drama. It wasn't till a year or so ago, I think, that I actually learned from posts here that there were scripted events in the original neighborhoods because I never played them.

So if you are one who plays them, what drew you to the Maxis hoods to begin with and what makes you continue to play them all these years later?

All of my Conversions, Creations and Stories may be found here:
HobbesED's Conversions and Creations

My most recently shared items (with pictures) may also be found here:
HobbesED's Dreamwidth

Forum Resident
#24959 Old 28th Sep 2020 at 11:07 AM
Quote: Originally posted by HobbesED
This may be the epitome of stupid questions, but I do want to know since it is not at all how I play my game. What are players' fascination with playing (and replaying) the Maxis neighborhoods?

I think I played Pleasantview briefly when I first got the game and maybe played the Calliente sisters briefly but once I got the hang of the game and how it differed from Sims 1 (where I had played the Newbies' house for more than 100 Sim days), I quickly moved on to making my own neighborhood, creating multiple Sims families of my own and never looked back. I am up to N010 now in my hoods with my created Sims generating their own storylines and their own drama. It wasn't till a year or so ago, I think, that I actually learned from posts here that there were scripted events in the original neighborhoods because I never played them.

So if you are one who plays them, what drew you to the Maxis hoods to begin with and what makes you continue to play them all these years later?

What personally drew me to them was my infinite conformity and seeing everyone play them and wanting in, but I think what made me stay was the fact that the stories are set up in a way that there's like countless possibilities as to what can happen. And it's not just huge events that can shape the stories either, but also things like "Where will Dina live after marrying Mortimer? The condo? The mansion? Will Alexander join them? Will Nina move out? Will she get a job or just laze around all day?"

I'd say the incentive to replay the pre-made sims' lives is just a sort of curiosity as to what dumpster fire of a story you can come up with this time. And to add to that, the sims themselves are quite popular since most people have played them and know them, and there's also a mystery/plotline on the back burner in every neighbourhood (Bella's disappearance, Olive's garden, the Capp-Monty feud) that at least subconsciously keeps people interested
Mad Poster
#24960 Old 28th Sep 2020 at 11:57 AM Last edited by AndrewGloria : 28th Sep 2020 at 12:13 PM.
I started off playing a pre-made 'hood rather than a custom one because I didn't want to build all my own houses and community lots. I wanted to start playing immediately, and didn't want to spend months learning to build first. I suppose I could have started with an empty terrain and added houses to it from the bin, but, starting with Double Deluxe, there were no community lots in the bin, and I wanted my Sims to be able to go shopping and meet other Sims. Apart from the time factor, at that stage I wasn't competent to build my own lots, and I knew it. I wanted to make my own Sims, and, if Maxis had provided a 'hood with houses and community lots but no Sims, I might have chosen that, but all three 'hoods that came with the game had Sims in them. Strangetown I didn't even consider, because I knew it had a reputation for being buggy, and I didn't want aliens anyway. So it was a choice between Pleasantview and Veronaville. I think my first plan was to play Veronaville for a few weeks while I learned the game, and then switch to Pleasantview. But it didn't work out that way. Veronaville had only 3 pre-made families, so there were plenty of houses that I could put my own Sims in. I think the main reason that I stuck with Veronaville was that I fell in love with those first Sims I created -- and it was almost instant love!

My expectations of the game were really not all that high. I thought I'd have some fun with some naughty animations (I'd seen on YouTube what they could get up to on a sofa!) and I could dress them in skimpy clothes (I knew about CC clothing before I bought the game). In fact, as soon as I started to play, my Sims just blew me away. Andrew was knocked together quite quickly in CAS -- though he did have CC swimwear (downloaded) and underwear (home-made in Body Shop). Gloria was knocked together even more quickly, when I realised that CAS wouldn't let me save a teenage boy on his own. I saw a nice looking little house at the end of Chorus Court that they could afford with their ยง20,000, and I moved them into it. And then I was hooked! They were so "real". Their strong personalities shone through. There was clearly a very strong bond between this boy and his mum -- they clearly cared deeply for each other. And I couldn't help caring for them too.

I suppose this love for the Sims who live there has kept me playing Veronaville. I've sometimes called my our Veronaville a semi-custom 'hood. Because the many CAS Sims I've added are just as important to me as the pre-mades. If anything maybe a bit more important, because they're more like me. The pre-mades are the long established, well-to-do leading families of the town; they're "old Veronaville". My CAS Sims (and the townies) are the ordinary townspeople. Being "ordinary" myself, I find it far easier to identify with them and empathise with them. But I have to say that, as i have found them, the pre-mades -- especially the teens -- are not snobs. They have no problems mixing with and making friends with "my" Sims. Andrew's boyfriend has a strong platonic friendship with Juliette Capp. When Mercutio began to realise that he might be gay, he turned to Andrew for advice.

Over the years I've been playing Veronaville I feel the whole atmosphere of the town has changed. It's become free-er, more accepting, less stuffy, more open. The old feud, which blighted the the town for so long, rarely flares up. We hope it might be history before too long. There's a confidence in the town. A feeling of civic pride. A belief that "We can do it." It's not perfect,and I'm sure it never will be, but, as the City Council says, "We're getting there".

I make a point of calling it "Our Veronaville" rather than "My Veronaville" because I know that most of the credit for what has been achieved belongs to my Sims, not me. But, when real life is grim with Covid, I feel good to be part of something better.

I'm an unusual Simmer. In nearly 8 years playing Veronaville, there have been two babies born, one wedding, and no deaths ever in my game at all. So my reasons for playing a pre-made 'hood are probably unusual too. I am a bit less committed to Pleasantview and Strangetown. I've played one rotation in Pleasantview and two in Strangetown. The second one there was for a Contest that Jo ran a couple of years ago. I played them both to meet for myself the Sims I kept reading about here. Neither are abandoned; I'll return to both of them eventually. And I've got a small number of custom 'hoods that I'll resume playing sometime. I've no interest at all in doing repeat playthroughs of the same 'hood. But for the moment I'm happiest to hang out with my numerous Veronavillian friends.

All Sims are beautiful -- even the ugly ones.
My Simblr ~~ My LJ
Sims' lives matter!
The Veronaville kids are alright.
Scholar
#24961 Old 28th Sep 2020 at 1:04 PM
I did start out making my own Sims and it was a long time before I tried the premades. I didn't even know they had scripted events until I read somewhere that you were guaranteed to see an alien abduction at the Curious house and I wanted to see one so I opened it. The problem with my CAS Sims is that they bored me. They seemed like blank slates. They didn't have a variety of relationships and conflicts established to hold my attention. Now maybe I was just really bad at making my own Sims--I can believe that's true! The premades had pre-existing relationships and stories, so they seemed more real to me. In my creative writing classes we were taught that it was more interesting to start in the middle of the story, and playing the premades was like coming in after the story had already started.

Strangetown is my preferred neighborhood because I really like all the Sims there (except Kristen Loste, she is the worst). I usually read horror or sci-fi, so I like how Strangetown premades play on tropes from those kinds of stories but there are also genuine family relationships there too. I've played the neighborhood through a few times because I've gotten to know these characters and I just like revisiting them, seeing what things they do differently and what stays the same (Johnny and Ophelia, cannot keep them apart). I'm trying to get past the second generation this time around.

I have downloaded a really nice-looking neighborhood that is prepopulated called Riverside that I may play if and when my Strangetown goes kablooey. Has anyone played it? What did you think of the families there?
Alchemist
#24962 Old 28th Sep 2020 at 1:50 PM
Quote: Originally posted by HobbesED
So if you are one who plays them, what drew you to the Maxis hoods to begin with and what makes you continue to play them all these years later?

I played the Sims 1 premades. Several of those characters reappeared in Pleasntview, which was set 25 years after TS1. The opportunity to continue their story interested me. I wanted to start playing right away, and it was convenient to have a framework to build on, instead of having to start a neighborhood from scratch. Something that's probably related is my habit of rewatching old shows. There's a comfort in revisiting my favorite fictional worlds and experiencing the emotions I felt the first time around. When I replay the scripted events in Sims 2, I can remember exactly what it was like when I first got the game and everything was new and exciting. TS3 and TS4 didn't really deliver on that shiny new feeling, so that might also be part of why it's so enjoyable to keep reliving my first experience with TS2.

Premade hoods have an advantage over old books and TV shows because, while the characters are familiar, nothing is set in stone. I can follow the tutorial and make Cassandra/Don do enough romantic interactions so that he'll marry her, like I did the first time, or ignore the instructions and let him leave her at the altar, or have her call off the wedding and ask her to leave. It's also nice that there's a community built around the premades. I'm more likely to follow premade players on tumblr, just because I like seeing what they did with their versions of the characters.
#24963 Old 28th Sep 2020 at 2:27 PM
Quote: Originally posted by sturlington
I have downloaded a really nice-looking neighborhood that is prepopulated called Riverside that I may play if and when my Strangetown goes kablooey. Has anyone played it? What did you think of the families there?


The only premade neighborhoods I've really played and gotten to know the characters well in are Pleasantview, Strangetown, and Widespot. I can't say anything for neighborhood story of Riverside, but I'm not interested in playing it simply because the way that the Sims look. Nothing against any of the creators work, it's just my personal taste. I love the three hoods that I've played because not only do they have great stories, they also have more unique looking Sims. I love to see features passed down through generations and how certain Sims' genetics mesh together, and that means I typically have Sims that others might find ugly. If you love Strangetown, you should definitely check out Widespot by Peni Griffin. It has a totally different story, but cool looking Sims, aliens, and drama And if you didn't know- most hood creators post pictures of the families and lots in the comments section of their upload, so you can look at each hood on MTS and see what interests you the most- the characters, buildings, etc.

I'm actually planning on adding Widespot and Strangetown to my custom hood Luna Canyon in the future. I just haven't thought of a story yet as to why I would add Widespot. Luna Canyon is loosely inspired by Zion National Park in Utah and I want my university Canyon State University (not built yet) to be in the desert based off of Arizona. So I figure the story for Strangetown will be as students drive south of Luna Canyon to college they stop for gas at a little town called Strangetown and that starts it all. Idk what to do about Widespot yet, but I definitely want those characters in my game again.
Alchemist
#24964 Old 28th Sep 2020 at 4:42 PM
I play pre-mades almost exclusively, but I've never played the scripted events. I've never even played the characters in PV that most people play, rather I love the bin families and townies turned into playables. For me, it's because they feel more "real," in that they already have histories, memories, things in their inventory. It's like discovering little people in the midst of their lives, rather than just creating them out of my own head. The stories I create are vast and interconnected and go on forever, rather like a very long running soap opera. I don't age them, rarely breed them, but spend enormous energy making as much as possible autonomous and surprising so I am immersed in their little world. At the same time, I've learned everything I can about how the game works at different levels so I can create, myself, whatever my imagination comes up with. It's a world-building, storytelling toy for me. I only have a few hoods and they are usually in different game folders so I can run the game very light. I mostly use PV, Widespot, which has evolved beyond recognition, and Desiderata, but whatever the story calls for will get added.
e3 d3 Ne2 Nd2 Nb3 Ng3
retired moderator
#24965 Old 28th Sep 2020 at 5:24 PM
Quote: Originally posted by HobbesED
What are players' fascination with playing (and replaying) the Maxis neighborhoods?
It's like slipping on a pair of old but very comfy slippers.
Alchemist
#24966 Old 28th Sep 2020 at 5:46 PM
Well, for me the reason I play the premade hoods comes down to two things, and they've both already been said. First, I love playing the premade hoods because they already have their own backstories and relationships. I'm not so good at creating my own sims and while I do enjoy storytelling, I find it hard to set up households in a new, empty hood. I either go way overboard, putting too much backstory and detail into some sims, and playing sims I didn't intend to play at all, like sims I only made to be ancestors to other sims. Or I don't put enough backstory, or at least I don't write it down. Then when I come back to play after some time, I forgot what I was doing with the sims and am just at a loss for how to progress. It's better if I have a backstory for the town as a whole, but yeah, the convenience of a town that's already set up is appealing sometimes. Like Andrew mentioned, most premade hoods have their own lots and houses, often enough to give the town it's own aesthetics--I find this especially true in Pleasantview and Veronaville. It can be a bit easier to continue on from these sometimes, at least for me, then to come up with completely new things from scratch.

And, not only do premade hoods come with lots and backstories, but they also tend to come with existing relationships and memories. I find that useful too, and it's another thing I struggle with when starting a hood from scratch. At this point I don't always follow the scripts (some of them are broken or I miss them anyway) so examining sims' memories and relationships to come up with new interpretations and new ways to play is fun for me. Which leads me to my second reason--I love to retell stories and try out new things along the way, finding new ways for the story to go. I guess I'm a person that loves the beginning and middle of stories. When the story looks like it's winding down, I love to reset the clock and see how things can change. Personally, I'm a serial hood re-starter. When a hood gets too big and I feel like I don't know what I want to do next or who I want to play, or if I feel like I lost my connection to the sims in the hood--those are usually the times I start over. Or maybe I didn't like how something turned out or I got a new idea from someone else's game and want to see what's that like and how things might play out differently. All of those are reasons why I restart. Who was it that compared it to a book? Omglo, I think--that really struck a chord for me, because yeah, that is a bit how I play. While I don't often make sims from other media, TS2 is a like a choose-your-own-adventure novel for me, or one of those rpgs where you get player choice. Except it's infinitely more freeing. There are times when I've followed the scripts and there are other times when I've completely ignored it and me and my sims went on a few side quests.

It's also extremely hard to recreate things exactly the same way. It may seem like someone is playing the same thing over and over, but it's not. No two hoods are exactly the same, even if it's the same premade hood, even if it's played by the same player. And I should know. There are times when I've restarted, thinking I could keep some things I've done and not others and my plans are completely upended because someone unexpectedly dies. Or a new romance presents itself. Like one time I restarted Strangetown--I didn't like what I did with the Smiths and maybe the Grunts, but wanted to keep everything else. So I restarted. Olive was supposed to find and marry a Grand Vampire and become a witch herself. But I wasn't watching her clock and she died of old age. I thought I might pair Nervous up with Pascal, as I'd seen so many times elsewhere, but turns out he has triple bolts for Circe, so I let him have an affair. In the old playthrough Kirsten ended up with General Buzz, next time around she ended up with Tank. And on and on. So many little changes that can make for new, interesting playthroughs. And doing simple things like changing who you play first can greatly change a hood and the story, because of those pre-existing relationships. Belladonna Cove is perhaps the best example of this. So many people find the later EP hoods lacking, but I really feel like Eaxis went all for that hood. The town is really connected in ways you don't even realize the first time you play. Sure you can make the Cordials feud like their Pleasantview counterparts and have them fight over Armand. But maybe you invite the Green household over first and Gabriel makes a move on Sammatha. Or maybe you play Carlos and have him hook up with Kimberly. Or maybe since he isn't actually Romance and you hate apartments, you have his relatives, the Baldwins, move in and you leave them all his wealth. And so on. So yeah, I find premades very easy to replay and fun to come back to and mess with.

Sometimes, instead of taking what feels like forever to set up a hood, decorate the map, create community lots and houses, and then make each sim/family and try to figure out a story for them, etc.--I load up a premade hood and just go. I've played them for years so I can install my saved lots, specialized for each hood, if I don't feel like building right away. For hoods like Pleasantview, I even have remodeled houses for all the premades if I'm really lazy. Then I can just immediately start to play. Setting up a hood is not always my favorite part of gameplay, though it can be fun and rewarding. Don't get me wrong, I get a lot of pride when I finish a little section of neighborhood and make buildings from scratch. Right now I do have hoods that I'm working on--an integrated hood that I'm still ironing out the rules for and a megahood using some of those premade hoods. But setting things up the way I want in those hoods can take a while, so taking a break to play a hood that's already set up is nice. I often break to a premade hood in between hood building elsewhere because less effort is required to get started. And each play though is unique so I never get bored of the same sims; my Consort Capp is a different Consort than the one I played years ago in my story hood. While they might share some traits and similarities, they don't make all the same choices and meet all the same people, and forge the same relationships. That keeps things fresh for me.

"May the sunlight find you, thy days be long, thy winters kind, thy roots be strong." -Grand Oak Tree, DAO

XPTL Mod Archive | Change a Mod's Mesh into a CC Object | Increasing the Game Difficulty | Editing ACR 4 Your Age Mod
Bored? Read an unfinished legacy or sim story. | aka Kelyns | she/her
Mad Poster
#24967 Old 28th Sep 2020 at 8:14 PM
For me, the premades already have characters and life history, like a neighborhood you've played for a while.
My problem with newly made CAS sims is they have no relationships outside of their own household, no life history, not much money (Apartment Life fixed that partly) and pretty much have to focus on how to pay the bills first, and they end up with similar wants as a result. Premades may have plenty of resources or not, and other people have played them, with a different style than I default to, so they have different wants to fulfill than sims I started from CAS. One of the fun things to me about PeniG's Widespot is how all the child sims roll up with a panel full of wanting to talk to other sims, including adults. My born-in-game or CAS child sims are all about grades, skill points, and hobbies, with a smattering of family and same-age friends related wants. Playing premades pulls me out of my playstyle bubble.

Pics from my game: Sunbee's Simblr Sunbee's Livejournal
"English is a marvelous edged weapon if you know how to wield it." C.J. Cherryh
Scholar
#24968 Old 28th Sep 2020 at 9:07 PM
Every time these types of discussions come up I always end up with even more love for this game as it really can be made to fit such a huge variety of players with different interests. It's why I like reading the "what's happening in your game" thread because there are lots of people whose games are so completely different from mine but at the same time familiar. It's interesting to me that a common theme so far is that most of you find the pre-made sims more relatable since they have established backstories. Yet, this is exactly why I don't relate to them. I like that blank slate and let's see who they are and what evolves aspect of the game. Isn't it awesome that we can all play the way that fulfill's us as an individual the most?
#24969 Old 28th Sep 2020 at 9:38 PM
As much as I enjoy the three pre made hoods I talked about above, I still loved starting my current hood from scratch. Tons of planning went into it. I had the "founding family," who is power hungry and loves to throw a good party. I had two farming families, which made sense since the town needs fresh food. My one character Julius is not only a farmer, but also the town's architect. Then there was also a fourth couple who were in the law enforcement and medical careers, two basic jobs for a town to have.
I didn't find it difficult that my Sims didn't know each other to begin with because part of my story was that the town's land had just started to be developed and everyone was new to the town. The founding family threw tons of parties so everyone became interconnected very quickly. Also, most of my families spent a lot of time focusing on finances since I don't help them at all with money and the challenge was fun. With only 4 families, I got through rotations very quickly. My first born in-game Sims are almost teens. I also have 10 households now, I've added families as the story progressed. There is so much going on in my town. Lots of affairs, lots of financial struggles, crime, and now a feud between the husband and wife of the founding family to see which one of them will become elected mayor first. Most of my playables are supporting the husband, but they have no idea the fraud he is committing.
If you're ever interested in starting a hood from scratch with CAS Sims, I suggest that you start the town basically empty and add lots as you play. It'll make more sense as to why your CAS Sims have no connections to any other families. Start with a few families and make their backstories very different so you find them all interesting. By only having a few families, you'll get to the next generation faster and those born in-game Sims have a lot more time to develop personality than the CAS adults. Once your town's story really starts coming alive, start thinking of reasons as to why other Sims would move to the town and add them. Having more households is an advantage for me now because the story was already at a good place, now I'm just giving it more opportunities to evolve.
Mad Poster
#24970 Old 28th Sep 2020 at 10:13 PM
It's actually very simple. The game is fiction in which the player is both the writer and the reader.

Sometimes you want original fiction, brand new characters to get to know and love, unexpected plots and relationships, everything new and shiny. You're having fun doing (or reading) the worldbuilding, developing the character voices, working out the plot, and it's wonderful.

But sometimes you don't have the energy for all that. Sometimes, you want to read yet another "night at Crowley's flat" fic, or a Supernatural/X-Files crossover, or a modern AU in which Jane Eyre is an impoverished student working in a coffee shop and Rochester is her most annoying customer, or you're thinking about the possibility that half the dwarfs in The Hobbit are female and Bilbo just hasn't noticed, or you really really resent the raw deal the author gave your favorite secondary character, or you want to practice writing romantic sex scenes and you want to do it with characters you're invested in but you don't want to start from scratch, or - and that's good, too.

If you write something original, you may want to make money from it and polish it up and get an agent or figure out how to make self-publishing work for you and until then you keep it to yourself; but if you write fanfic you know where the audience is and that there isn't any money so you dash it off and plop it onto AO3 for instant gratification and kudos.

By the same token, when you're simming, you may or may not feel like sharing your custom neighborhoods with the world because you don't expect them to be interested and you're just doing it for yourself anyhow; but you know if you post pics of your medieval Pleasantview playthrough there's a good chance people will be interested. So the premades are overrepresented in public simsharing - people feel a lot more confident that their premade gameplay will be read and enjoyed by strangers. Even I, who have not been shy about sharing the late lamented Drama Acres, have occasionally just not felt like providing all the necessary backstory to set up exactly why a five-second game interaction was funny enough, in context, that I almost fell off my chair. The premades are easier all around. I'm sure lots of people play custom hoods and premades both - but we're more likely to share our premade gameplay.

Ugly is in the heart of the beholder.
(My simblr isSim Media Res . Widespot,Widespot RFD: The Subhood, and Land Grant University are all available here. In case you care.)
Mad Poster
#24971 Old 28th Sep 2020 at 11:03 PM Last edited by simmer22 : 29th Sep 2020 at 9:58 PM.
I started out with premades, but got bored after a while and ended up making my own families. I have played several rounds with the Curious brothers, but mostly because the alien aspect was the only that managed to keep my attention - I had a long-running fascination with the little green blobs, and the Curious gang were the only ones who got any for a while. I tried playing a bit in Pleasantview, but never to the point where things took off very far beyond the scripted happenings (I tended to try finding ways around them...). Veronaville never captured my interest. To this day I've only barely opened that neighborhood.

I played for a while with some premade students in one of the University lots, and I think they got moved into Pleasantview to continue their generations there. Not sure how far I got before I grew bored with them, but somewhere around generation 3-5.

After this I've almost exclusively played with sims I've made (except for a few testing rounds, nostalgia tours, and maybe borrowed a few background extras for stories here and there). I prefer making my own stories, simple as that. I never had a lot of patience for playing just with adult/teen sims, so I feel after the initial fun run out, I kind of don't know what to do with the premades. I have found stories I like to read about them, though.

I'm more the "write a story and take pictures" or "make a family and create a story around them" kind of player, and feel the stories around the premades are a bit limiting. I prefer to start from scratch.
Field Researcher
#24972 Old 28th Sep 2020 at 11:48 PM
I had rarely played the pre-mades for the first 14 years. My first serious hood was based on me marrying Gerard Butler and all our decendants. The next hood was my sister and her husband (I lost the most recent version when my last laptop crashed, but there is a slightly out of date version at my in-laws on a computer we stores there - I am still hoping to get it back and see if I can start from there). I had my sister create a bunch of families who lives in the neighborhood and married in. Love me those single parent families as partners for my playables.

When I started up again after that crash, the idea of starting from the beginning was exhausting. So I figured I would try Pleasantview. It's great. Lots of characters and plots I had not explored before. More divorces. More murder. Less perfect happy families.
Scholar
#24973 Old 29th Sep 2020 at 12:10 AM
Quote: Originally posted by Coriel_Muroz
My first serious hood was based on me marrying Gerard Butler and all our descendants.
I gotta say this made me laugh till I cried, in a very good way. :D
Forum Resident
#24974 Old 29th Sep 2020 at 12:36 AM
Thanks everyone who has replied so far. It's been enlightening to get different player's feedback. It does seem as though there are several fairly common themes. One is that for varying reasons, people like starting with characters who already have some backstory and they enjoy playing that backstory and then replaying it while changing little (or big) things to see how that changes the story. And a second thing seems to be sharing a sense of community through the characters so that other players have some feel for what's happening and can better relate to what's going on in each version of similar neighborhoods.

I can easily understand the second one. I've played my custom Shape Island hood for more than 100 Sim days, well into the 4th generation with close to 200 Sims now, but I don't share details about it because no one else can relate to my Sim characters or storylines just as I can't relate to what's going on with the Brokes or Goths or Grunts since I don't know anything about them or the town. And the first one, replaying to see how the lives change, can be intriguing although like Simmer22, I'd probably get bored playing them for any length of time.

As BeckyBoo did, I started my hood from scratch. A lot of pre-planning went into it - creating 50 single adult CAS Sims to start with and the premise being these 50 were volunteers in a social experiment on an island without communication to others off of the island. So that's why they had no relationships or family ties to start with. They were blank slates trying to find compatible mates among the other volunteers (3-bolt rule) and then to see how their lives progressed from there.

Many of the storylines developed on their own - like one of the first single Gen 1 residents found herself unexpectedly pregnant and then upon having twins, wondering how she was going to be able to feed and clothe her babies and pay her pills once her leave ran out (no interaction allowed outside my playables) as she would have to either lose her job or lose her twins. She was already selling off her house furnishings when a fire from low cooking skill destroyed part of her kitchen making her situation quite dire. I honestly had no idea how things would unfold. And then in the middle of the night one of her previous relationships (not the father of her twins) dropped off a karaoke machine as thanks for a great date together (before the twins). The money she received from selling that random gift got her through the toughest times and also began a more serious relationship with the gift giver. Not planned and a heck of a story but not of that much interest to other players here other than anecdotally.

I don't get bored with my hood now that it's more established because with each rotation, there are baby Sims born, elder Sims dying and toddler, child and teen Sims aging up and establishing their own personalities. I've chronicled the lives of the residents through an imaginary reporter writing stories with pictures for their local newspaper (The Shape Island Reports) so that I can go back and read or reread what happened to them, their parents or even grandparents and recall what happened in the game several real-life years ago.

It has been helpful to gain insight into how others have played the original neighborhoods and how by doing that they find enjoyment with the game.

All of my Conversions, Creations and Stories may be found here:
HobbesED's Conversions and Creations

My most recently shared items (with pictures) may also be found here:
HobbesED's Dreamwidth

Scholar
#24975 Old 29th Sep 2020 at 6:58 AM
Question on deleting files you've placed via scriptorium. I have stairs that I want to delete from my game that had a txt file I put in via scriptorium. I know where the scriptorium files are in the TSData files, my question is do I just delete those and the stairs file in the download folder? Seems kind of straightforward to me but I'm always suspicious of things that seem too easy.
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