10x10 Community Lots Have Been Added!

Enjoy an updated picture of Serenity Point!  The winning lots from my 10x10 Community Lot Contest have been added to the world.  Also, the lighthouse decorative objects has been replaced with a residential lot that has a working lighthouse on it.  I think it matched a lot better!  I've also done some more sculpting on the cliff behind the town.  I need to decide what I'm going to do with that big expanse of flat green on the way to the lighthouse.  It's just sort of blah right now, but I think I have enough rocky areas... perhaps I'll make that whole area a little rolling hill.  I plan on adding a little flowery meadow in between the Cherry Lane houses and the forested country homes.  Butterfly spawners, etc... it should lead into the Butterfly Preserve well.

Oh, I'd had some lagging issues in my world before.  Not when creating it, but after exporting it and installing it in an active game.  My sims/world would freeze for long periods and it would eventually happen so often that I couldn't play the world.  That didn't happen at all when I was testing the 10x10 community lots.  Either the world is working better now that there's more in it or it's because I hadn't painted the routing paint separating the campground on the plateau from the rest of the world.  If the routing paint is causing issues, I'm going to have to rethink the separate campground.  It's still a Go for now, but it is the biggest thing I'm focusing on when I enter the testing phase.

You're Now Entering Serenity Point... Enjoy Your Stay!

My world finally has a name!  The husband and I discussed a few ideas, but as soon as he suggested "Serenity Point", I was sold.  I love it.  Not only does it have a geographic "point" that is decorated with asian homes and flora (very serene), but it's a nice Firefly association which is even more nostalgic when considering that the world also has a valley.  (If you haven't watched Firefly before, the spaceship Serenity was named for Serenity Valley where the captain and his first mate were part of a losing battle.)

Now that the world has a name, I'm going to start getting together the next contest which will be for community lots.  I will probably run several at the same time, but the 10x10 version will run the longest as they [usually] take more time that decorating around a rabbit hole.  I had wanted to have a City Hall completed before starting these contests, but it hasn't worked out that way.  I have a pretty cute idea for one, but I'll need to do some more planning.

While others are working on community lots, I have other work cut out for me on top of the City Hall.  I need to plan and complete the explorable tomb a la World Adventures for the rewards area.  I also need to place spawners and plants.  And, now that it has a name, I think it's finally time to start up a thread for my world over in the Sims 3 forum! :D

(Hehehe, while the husband I were tossing around silly names, trying to see how pretentious they could sound, he hit upon one that is just so awesome that I may have to make it into a small parody world.  It's called Disestablishmentarianism Pinnacle and would be an island where various subcultures have separated to live how they want to because they're anti, they're anti-social. ;D  I love it.  I can even use my punk house in it.  *laughs*)

A World By Any Other Name...

I've been trying to decide upon a name for the world.  My goal is to come up with a few that I like and then let my husband make the final decision.  I was going to let him just come up with the name, but after the first 10 silly suggestions, I realized that was an exercise in futility.

Since I am not immune to ego-stroking, a few of the potential names include a similarity to my own (hint: my nickname is Sharebear).  However, I can easily incorporate it elsewhere in the world, if I choose to, so that isn't necessary in the name.  I'm leaning towards names that allude to the geographic style of the world.  So while I started with Sharington, I became drawn to names like Cape Amity and Sharing Cove (I love the way that one rolls off the tongue... almost sounds like Sharing Grove).  After some googling, I found out that a location in Jaws is called Amity Island, and as a movie that I resist watching due to nightmares it gave me as a child, I'm not sure I embrace that association.  Cape Amity is one of my favorites, though.

Anyway, drop off a suggestion if you'd like.  So far, I'm up to:

Sharington
Cape Amity
Sharing Cove

The following are inspired by the Cape of Good Hope in Africa, which is such an adorable name:
Cape of Sharing
Cape of Goodwill
el Cabolito de Amistad (Spanish for Little Cape of Amity/Friendship)  <-- This is a cute name, but I don't really have a lot of hispanic influence in the world.

These should give you an idea of what I'm leaning towards, which is an east coast beach tourist town style name.  I have a hard time thinking of ones that sound good.  I mean, Hilton Head sounds nice, but Sharing Head or Amity Head sound gross and like a site of former decapitation.

So which one sounds good to you?

Acquiring Store Items!

I went on a mini-shopping spree tonight.  I went through all of the 10x10s from Bloo's contest (well, all that were on the Exchange) and bought all of the Store items they used that I didn't own provided they were still available.  I don't know what Day Star 3000 was, but it must have been a popular promo item when it came out.  Several people used it, but it isn't available anymore.

Anyway, it only came out to 17 items.  Well, technically there are two more I need to get to make all of the houses show up in my world as intended (sans third party CC), but I had planned on getting them as part of sets, so I haven't made the plunge yet.  I have no problem buying them before I finalize with houses in game, but I won't get them until the last possible moment so that they have time to go on DD.  That's the only reason I've held off on them this long.

I may just have been looking for an excuse to spend simpoints on myself, but it was fun to go through them.  Some items were used so frequently that I started to recognize their names and not have to check them anymore.  And I just enjoyed looking at the houses again.  I don't know if it's the tiny = cute syndrome, but I just love 10x10s.  I feel like doing a featured lots each week, except I should spend my time on getting my world finished.  It just makes me like this world even more.

Survey Results

A couple weeks ago I posted the following survey:

What would you like to see in the "reward" area of the world? This campground is designed as a reward for those who have lived in a 10x10 house in the valley & gained enough skill or lifetime points to teleport. (You can pick multiple answers.)

These are the results:

Stick with the 10x10 residential lots theme - 9 votes (37%)
Larger residential lots - 5 votes (20%)
Harvestable plants from other countries - 10 votes (41%)
Fish from other countries - 7 votes (29%)
An explorable tomb like those in World Adventures - 14 votes (58%)
A nectary - 8 votes (33%)

I also had the great ideas submitted by anettesb of adding a playground and a swimable pond to the main campground.  These have both been incorporated and are great additions.  Good suggestions!

Using a cut off of 40% (meaning almost, but not quite, half of the voters agreed that this was needed), the following ideas should be incorporated into the reward area:

Harvestable plants from other countries
An explorable tomb like those in World Adventures

I'm surprised that plants from other countries received more votes than fish from other countries.  I tend to associate them together, but I guess it's easier to harvest without skill than to successfully fish without skill.  I'm sort of pleased that the nectary wasn't a very popular idea, as I like to have reasons to visit the other countries in game.  On the other hand, the tomb idea was more popular than I expected but shouldn't interfere with any opportunities, so that's good.  Now I have to decide what to do for it!  I'm tempted to do it myself as I don't know how many people use tomb objects and I'm at least mildly experienced with them.

Since the first two choices, 10x10 homes versus larger homes, is a decision I need to make, I'm letting the votes decide.  With 9 votes, the lead goes to "stick with the 10x10 residential lots theme", so that's what I'm doing!

Back to the Original Plan, I Think

Ok, there's definitely a difference between orange routing paint, which means land is unroutable due to terrain height, etc., and blue routing paint which is manually put on the world by the creator to mark an area as unroutable to sims.  I covered the cliff with the blue paint...

and when told to go to the tattoo shop in the valley, my little test sim freaked out and said he couldn't do it.  I even walked him to the edge of the cliff to make sure it wasn't due to any obstacles in his way.

He was still about to order pizza and get his newspaper okay.  The NPCs just popped into and out of existence.  I tested the response of the firefighter NPCs by having Ed experience a little cooking accident...

and firetruck showed up without a problem.  Fire was put out, although Ed got pretty singed.  I put the subway stations in place on both the plateau and the valley.  It didn't seem like a viable solution.  Whenever I told Ed, up on the rewards plateau, to go to Slocum's Ink in the valley, he would say there was no routable path.  However, when I clicked on the subway station in the valley and told him go there, he would take the subway without a problem.  I don't know if he would have taken the subway willingly if there had also been a street route to get there.  I may test this just to know it, but I don't want to do that in the world if I don't have to.

Out of curiosity for the firefighter career, which requires you to go to others' houses without being able to choose your transportation method (no choosing to teleport if you have that ability), I built another house in the reward area and moved in a resident.  Then I had Ed join the firefighter career.  When it came time for him to go to work, his carpool showed up without a problem.

The ride then blinked out and reappeared in front of the [completely undecorated] firestation.

I don't know if it was because of the massive amounts of trees, the game trying to populate the world with NPCs, or it trying to figure out how he could respond to a fire in an area without a road, but the game started slowing down at this point.  A lot.  I'm a bit concerned about it because it is just happening with this world, but I'm not going to focus on it until real testing starts in case it's resolved by some of the things I fill in later, like NPCs.

Anyway, Ed did receive one emergency to respond to and, as far as I'm aware of, the only resident in town should have been the sim living up in the reward area.  I wasn't able to check because of the lag and abruptness, but I suspect that it was for this sim because the alarm shut off and the emergency disappeared almost immediately.  I think the game started the emergency for this sim and then analyzed it, realized there was no way for the firetruck to get there, and shut it off.  It didn't seem to count negatively against him and I double-checked that the sim in the reward area still had his house and no apparent problems from having an unaddressed emergency.  It's good to know that while people living in the reward area will be inaccessible for this type of activity, it doesn't actually cause problems for them or the firefighter sim.  There should only be about 4 residences in the reward area anyway, so the majority of emergencies should be down in the valley and accessible.

Well, this has certainly been a learning experience.  I think this is turning out pretty similar to how I first imagined the reward area, and it's good to know that NPCs are not impacted.  It's possible that some other issue may come up during testing, but I'll face that when I come to it.  If all else fails, it's easy enough to blaze a trail through the forest and add a road to that area.

Unexpected Results for the Reward Area

I decided to export my world as it currently is and install it in my live game for testing.  Specifically, I wanted to see how the isolated area on the plateau connected (or didn't) with the rest of the lots down in the main town.  The results were... not what I expected.  Possibly more good than bad, but I think I'll have to re-evaluate my approach of an isolated area, simply for realism.  Before going into the details, let's look at some pictures of my test subject, Edward, experiencing his base camp and the campground.

Yay!  My world is selectable!  It installed perfectly.  And, look!  My little picture I selected is there.  *claps hands*

Edward's home came with ghosts!  Nice to confirm that these random challenges still exist in my world.  While I love this little campsite, I think I'd like to have some really houses up at the reward area.  What if someone wants to bring a family with them?  Is that a vampire ghost?  I'm not sure I've seen such a evil-looking ghost before.  A ghost hunter showed up to get rid of him, although Ed turned him down.  So at least we know service NPCs will show up on their own.

Ed walks from his campsite over to the main campground and goes for a swim.  It works!!! *cackles madly*

Ed gets out of the pool-pond without a problem, although he gets a face full of grass while he does it.  *rolls eyes*

No problem using the shower or toilet!

Back at home, Ed tests service NPCs again by ordering pizza.  No problem getting it delivered.  I followed the delivery person's car when they left, and it did the same thing as the ghost hunter's.  It drives down the road, makes a u-turn and then disappears.  So the service NPC just pop in and out of existence as needed.  I'm not certain what would happen with firefighters.  I didn't think of it at the time, but I think Ed may need to start a fire in the near future.

Now the weird stuff that forces me to rethink my approach to this area.  Several random townies showed up at the campground.  When I followed them, I found that they would drive their car to the part of the road closest to the cliff edge, get out of their car and then... walk down the cliff face, whereupon they would run to a road and get back in their car.

Now, I ask you... does that look realistic?

I decided to send Ed to the tattoo parlor using a taxi, and he did the same thing.  >:(

On the one hand, it's good that service npcs can show up at the lots on the plateau.  On the other hand, this looks silly.  I don't know if I'd prefer that they give me some routing error message... I think I'd prefer they just wink out of existence and reappear on the bottom road.  I've looked at my routing map.  That area is unroutable for sims!  But I guess getting from one location to another outweighs routing.

Oh, this solution just came to me.... A subway.  I didn't want to have one in the world, but at this rate I'm going to have to add a road to connect up to the campground anyway unless I want everyone scaling the cliff all day long.  It still doesn't help with the firefighters (will they get out of their truck to run up the cliff, I wonder?), but using a subway terminal at the top and bottom would at least allow it to look isolated.  For those who don't have Late Night.... well, to be honest, the world sort of relies upon having all expansions, so maybe I won't worry about that.  It's simply a requirement.  Not that the world won't work without it...  you'll just have people running up and down the cliff.  If I don't use the subway terminal and go with a road instead, that will be a very long drive from, say, the beach up to the campground.  I personally don't want that.  Le Sigh.  Something to think about, I guess.

On a positive note, once Ed was down in the town, he got to visit some interesting places.  He stopped by Slocum's Ink for a quick read.

He took a spooky drive up Gothic Hill.  (ooo fog... spoooooky!) ;D

And then he went to the beach to catch the sunset.  Thank goodness I was able to make the boardwalk a road, because I wouldn't want to wait for a sim to run all the way down, particularly for those houses at the end of it.

I forgot to check where the sunset would be before choosing which way my town faced, but thank goodness you can see it from the town and it's not behind it over the mountains.  Phew!  Turns out it sets slightly to the right side of the town and makes a pretty picture with the lighthouse in front.

Well, that's enough for today, I suppose.  It looks like the poll is favoring using 10x10 residential lots instead of larger lots in the reward area, but since the area can't be made inaccessible to all but those who live there and service npcs, I will need to find another way to make it special.  If I have all rare and special items available up there, everyone in the town has access to them even if it's less convenient.  So the lots will  have to make up for it.  Perhaps I can create a contest to make some log cabins that are luxurious... say each room must give the Well Decorated or whatever it is moodlet.  No price limit.  We need our little rich area, too, right?  *laughs*