Having restarted my game...yet again, I wanted to know which neighborhood you guys liked playing the most and why? My all time hands down favorite is Pleasantview. I love how you can basically take the drama that EA has laid out for you and do whatever your heart desires to it. Does Don marry Cassandra and stay faithful?? Does Dina send Mortimer in an early grave inheriting all his money or does he wise up and make her kick rocks? I think my love of this neighborhood has kept me from really exploring other neighborhoods and I have never been good at making my own.

So which is your favorite? Why is it your favorite!

If you mean EA neighborhoods, Strangetown. The households there all engaged me immediately. Especially the Curious Boys, and Nervous; but the Grunts are heartbreakers. I want to rescue all of them as much as I want to rescue Nervous.

If you mean out of all Sims2 neighborhoods, of course I like my own best - Drama Acres and Widespot. Drama Acres because it's all my own and I've invested so much time in and come to love all the characters so much; Widespot because it's so much fun seeing what other people can think of to do with my creations, and in what ways they're consistent, and in what ways they can be widely various.

I wish I had the patience to create my own from scratch. I have tried believe me the whole time I was pregnant with my son I spent those months building and designing, got pretty far too only to one day wake up and decide my houses all looked the same, and my community lots were all missing something. I have always been better working off the EA neighborhoods mostly Pleasantview. It has a variety of people and houses that make the options endless. Veronaville homes all look the same and I can't get into that.

My favorite now is the 3 beginning hoods I made for all 3 base game hoods Pleasantview, Strangetown and Veronaville.
I had to rescue all the deleted Sims I just had to.
See my sig. for more info.

I love the Sims in Pleasantview, and I like the neighborhood design in Belladonna Cove. The rest didn't seem to captivate me as much as the two hoods I mentioned.

Are these downloads the three base game hoods with no sims?

I like the sims in Pleasantview and Strangetown. I love the sims in Peni's Widespot :lovestruc

No these are brand new hoods with all the first gen. deleted that I fixed and extracted and clone and made anew in the hood they belong to.
There are no houses or community lots just the hood and Sims so players can do it there way or follow the way EA story goes.

They were made using the AGS clean and empty so there are no NPC or Townies yet.

Oh cool! I might have to try it out!

(took the quote out, not sure why I hit the reply button. D'oh!)

Pleasantview is my favorite, but these days I like to link them all together into a megahood, with some custom hoods tagging along as subhoods. Don never marries Cassandra in my game; he always marries the maid. I always recreate my first successful Sims 1 family in The Sims 2, I create the adults as elders and the child as an adult. Though I'm going to create them as children this next time, get the right memories in there, and use testingcheats to age them up

Just read the read-me files in each one and have fun.

I always play Pleasantview so I might have to switch things up so I don't restart my game as much! Maybe Riverblossom Hills but I remember it boring me to tears last time I played it.

The trick to making your own, Julia, is to keep it simple and do it a little at a time. Drama Acres started as six core families built according to a backstory, SSU, Downtown, and the standard townies and downtownies. As time went on I'd think: "The Hawkinses need kids to play with; let's add the Ottomas, Newson, and Gavigan families." And "Greg and Eppie want to join the Greek Houses; better start playing them." "Ack, the Greeks are about to empty out, better empty the student bin." "Drama Acres needs a skating rink!" "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if -"

Widespot, of course, had to be planned extensively and done in a particular way; but if you look at structurally, I was primarily manipulating the most basic mechanical elements to generate story potential on their own. I took "keep it simple" to the extreme there. When building for your own amusement rather than to share, you don't have to be nearly so careful and don't have to plan ahead at all to get satisfactory results, as long as you start with a strong concept that engages your imagination.

Which I think is what they did with the most successful EAxis hoods. Strangetown, Pleasantview, and Veronaville all have strong, cohesive concepts behind them which can be endlessly elaborated by the players. Bluewater Village was built primarily to provide players with a ready-made place to experiment with the new features, but the mere fact of planting different kinds of businesses operated by different kinds of households (the home business, the family business, the entrepreneurial sim with multiple irons in the fire) created households that interact in interesting ways. Desiderata Valley has no such strong cohesive concept to generate story from, so a lot of people have trouble getting into it.

I know it's not the answer you wanted, but none of them. There isn't a single one with a storyline that I read and went "Oh, I want to play this". My first hood was pleasantview, but that's because it's the one I find prettiest, I never touched the pre-made characters.

I'm very much in my own head, I suppose

I like Strangetown the best, speficically the Strange town characters of the Curious family and the house that the Beakers live in. I never really got into the other families except for Ajay Loner. That dude is versatile. I like Pleasantview for the Caliente sisters, the Broke family and Lothario. I'm not a fan of the rest of them. I've never even played in Veronaville, Belladonna cove, or the rest of the premades, except for the instances in which I made my own "Galaxy neighborhood" (where I corrupted my game SO bad I had to reinstall) or recently, in play testing a megahood. Even then those other families didn't get attention...

If you're talking Templates, I'm currently using and in love with the Arbordale template after messing with the terrain via modifyneighborhoodterrain cheat that came with Funtime.

And of course now my favorite is the Trancedale Hills neighborhood I started for a BACC. I love it there.

Out of the pre-made hoods that would be Strangetown. It caught my eye due to the aliens and I've played it a couple of times trying to turn it's population green. I have hardly touched any of the others. I have opened Pleantview a few times, playing Brandi Broke up to where her baby becomes a toddler, and a little bit with the Pleasant's and Goths. I had a look around the hood that came with apartment life to see how apartments worked and the rest I put into a folder on my desktop.

My favourite has always been my own hoods, which is pretty much what I have done since the game came out. It isn't hard, I've often started them with about 3 houses and 3 families. I have two integrated hoods, one hood for my legacy challenge, one for my test of Time Challenge and another hood for my OWBC and WYD challenges. Others I have scraped along the way.

I love my merged Pleasantview/Strangetown. I love crossovers in general (on tv shows and soap operas), so to see the sims from different hoods interact with each other never ceases to amaze me.

Strangetown; it's stories are intriguing. Pleasantview is a close second, though

Riverblossom Hills, since it's the first hood I ever played, and where my simself's family lives. I play RBH with aging off.
My favorite premade, Leod McGreggor, lives in RBH. He got himself a makeover (now he's a hottie!), an aspiration change (he's an amazing dad, and being a Family sim really suits him), a lovely townie wife (vacation chick Angie... umm, Calson? Kalson? Well one of those, anyway), and a buttload of kids. He tends to his farm, his gazillion kids, and runs a very successful home business (selling his produce, obviously). He's a hard worker and a very nice guy, who autonomously takes care of his kids, even though he's starving and soon fainting himself, after a long day outside on the farm. His wife mostly plays on the computer. Lovely woman.

It took me years to even try any of the other neighborhoods for more than like five minutes, they all bored me, because, well, my family wasn't there. They were just a bunch of strangers, and most of them weren't that interesting really. Then at some point I got tired of never knowing who the heck people were talking about in sims discussions. Everybody seemed to have opinions about the Pleasantview people, so I decided to "force myself to play" it, and actually started to like it eventually (when I got to know the sims better). Love Dustin Broke, love Don Lothario (after a makeover ) and his kids. Like Lilith Pleasant, and Alexander Goth (who married Lilith). They had some interesting-looking spawn. The rest, well, could take'em or leave'em, at best. Hate Brandi Broke. Hate Angela Pleasant. Cassandra Goth yawn (and looks like a dude in a dress).

Later I tried Veronaville as well, and this time I liked it. Especially Mercutio & Romeo Monty, and Puck Summerdream (Mercutio & Puck are a couple, and have a lovely daughter!). Romeo married his townie boyfriend Amar Hamilton, and they are awesome. Grumpy old Consort Capp took in the Downtown Tricou teens (I teleported them in, and moved them in with the teleporter cat), and became absolutely obsessed with one of them, Timothy (the goth dude), to the point that I had Consort adopt him (Sim Blender). Consort loves Timothy, he keeps hugging and family kissing and hanging out with him, Timothy is everything to him. Now that Timothy has a son of his own, Consort loves his "grandson" as well (Timothy stayed with Consort, when the others moved out... I didn't have the heart to move him out, so his then-girlfriend-now-wife moved in, and now they are raising their son with the help of Grandpa Consort.).

My latest "maybe I should try it and see who's who and stuff" is Strangetown, but even though I've read Strange_Tomato's lj "Strangetown, Here We Come" and loved it (hopefully she'll continue writing it!), playing it myself hasn't quite lived up to my expectations. Too bad. The premades seem ok, I like some of them, so I don't know what's "wrong". Maybe I just need to play them a little longer.

The other hoods are yawn, tried them briefly a couple of times, but nah. Can't even remember the names... umm, Desiderata? And.... omg, have to google it... oh yes, Belladonna. Whatev.

If I had to pick a EA default I would have to say Pleasantview was my favorite. The stories are just a lot more interesting to me than the stories in the other neighborhoods. I don't mind the other neighborhoods, but if I want to play and actually play out the stories I play Pleasantview. Then again, lately I exclusively use HP's Uber-Megahood so I have all EA neighborhoods combined into one. Once I started using that I haven't touched any of the regular neighborhoods. I just like being able to play any neighborhood I want without switching to a different save.

I think my problem with creating my own is I feel I should have an established neighborhood before I move sims in. Like alot of community lots, everything they would need to shop for, alot of homes and pet store, and parks and.....on and on and on. Maybe if I can refrain my mind to start small and build up I can accomplish something, I am very much a want results now type of person, I guess I have a hard time of letting a story develop slowly.

LOVE this thread, Juliapaige !
Strangetown just pulls me in .... can't seem to play the sims without having S.Town installed. Although I make it a bit unrecognizable due to combining this neighborhood with a partial apocalypse theme. Just seemed to fit.
Here's what happened in my S.T. : The existing community lots were badly damaged during the nuclear meltdown at the testing site. They are mostly leveled, with a few oddly-angled walls (thx to the "boolprop_constrainfloorelevation_false" cheat ) , filled with weeds, cactus trees, and debris ; and each one has a toilet , tent, and outdoor shower for the vagrants. I also created and added a mostly intact com. lot , that boasts 2 bowling lanes, game table, a drink/snack machine ; and an outhouse.
The latest addition to S.T. is a community cemetery called "Boot Hill". Real original. The idea to combine sci-fi / apocalypse/ wild west came partly from watching the "Serenity" series years ago with Nathan Fillion.

Poor PT9 never survives in S.T. since I don't like his genes --- he perishes as soon as the hood is set up , due to radiation sickness and depression from failing to prevent the nuclear disaster. His kids join him in the afterlife as I've never had them be a part of the S.T. story.....although that may change. His wife Jenny survives and is left with a falling apart house and a small graveyard out back. Her once proud yellow house ---the nicest one in town , she thought --- is now in tatters and cobbled together with bits of mismatched siding. Her lawn is rusty dust and she could not save her outdoor shrubs. She learns to survive by digging in the trash and selling what's left in her house. One day, a handsome stranger shows up , needing shelter and a job. He puts up a small greenhouse and promises to help Jenny begin her life anew........

O.K., this is starting to look like a journal. I'll try to summarize the rest.

Beakers , Specter lady and her niece , and Curious brothers all perish in the cataclysm. Their descendants are mostly aliens except for Nervous who is re-christened Logan. Logan becomes a single parent through fostering. At each of the homes where a premade(s) has perished, there is one descendant or caretaker who keeps their tomb(s), and can resurrect them into playables or townies depending on how the story goes.

I hope i didn't totally bork my S.T., but I briefly resurrected Lyla Grunt and reunited her with the Grunts. They didn't seem too attached to her, so I maxed her aspiration and let her die of old age ; and now Buzz has her tomb out back. The Grunt boys grew up and moved out as townies , as well as the Single family (Tarlia gave them back their correct last names )
Ajay Loner kept his name and had a bit of cosmetic surgery and now wanders the streets of S.T. as a hot townie.

As far as other hoods, I'm dabbling around with Desiderata Valley and have plans for the reclusive Mr. Mole ........

B.C. is a magical fantasy hood ---all premades ---except the Cordial sisters, Jessica Peterson, and her ex-lover --- get townified. Then I start creating my future witches,vampires, etc.

RBH is a small hood where I don't add a downtown or shopping district ; it's mainly used for experimenting and all of the plantsims live there. Leod McGreggor gets a makeover and a much-needed (in my opinion) change of attire. He also gets a wife, and some chickens and pigs.


This will most likely be the best of the sims games I've played , in my opinion. So much to do and create ! :P

Very imaginative Tleilaxu3 I am in the process of taking Peni's advice and beginning my own hood. Silver Valley I have downloaded some lots from here and have made my sim self and family. Small start but I am trying to take things slow...:-)

Pleasantview and Widespot by far. In every family in Pleasantview there are multiple issues going on that can be fixed multiple ways, and I've restarted Pleasantview multiple times. Each way I've gone about fixing the problems led to more drama and more endless possibilities. It's fun to pair up different people with each other and see how it turns out. But there are some situations I've never tried and could never bring myself to do. I've never had Mortimer marry Dina, I couldn't let him lose his mind completely or do that to Bella. I never let Mary-Sue stay with Daniel, she deserves better. I never let Don sneak his way into the Goth fortune through Cassandra, I love Cassandra and don't want her to find out his cheating ways after they get married. They either call the wedding off, or he leaves her at the altar. There are some situations I'd love to try though, which I have never done before. I never had Darren be with Brandi, since he was always chasing Cassandra. Or I never let the Oldies live by themselves, they bored me to death and their ages didn't make sense compared to Mary-Sue, so I usually killed them off. Also Lilith never fixed her relationships with her family members and Dustin never stayed a criminal forever. This town has so many different ways you can go about things, it's awesome!
Since you've played Pleasantview a lot, I suggest Widespot. It clearly has a lot of effort put into it, compelling storylines, cartoony awesome looking Sims, creative pun names (which I always feel embarrassed to name a new Sim since I suck at that), and funny pregnancy situations. Some relationships will make you go "Eek!!" or you'll root for them. By "Eek!", you'll have to play the game yourself to see what I mean. Some couples seem like perfect matches to me, but their is something standing in their way you have to figure out, that being a current marriage or pregnancy or something else. You will seriously get addicted to this hood, and sadly I had to stop playing since when a family with a grave moved to a new lot, it somehow duplicated the grave, and me being stupid- I deleted one borking my town. I definitely want to get into it again though, or maybe add it as a subhood to my current town so they can help me get the drama flowing into the town and inspire me to make my own cartoony Sims.

See, that's why you need backups, Becky! You could have just gone back and redone it, so you got the grave moved properly. You could even try it several times.

I think when there's duplicate graves one is empty and safe to delete. The tricky part is to find out which is which. And of course it might take a long time for the corruption to show - you might have been able to play till you reached a better stopping point.