Time to experiment

Anyone remember TS3 Amberle?


I have not really been playing Sims 3. Various reasons, mostly that the neighborhoods were too large to control I think. I need to know the sims in town to have it have meaning for me.

So, with the creation of this little village world for my story, I've decided to give this another go and actually try playing the game the way we do TS2. I want to create a town, fill it with Sims that I care about, hopefully give it room to grow. (Though I didn't give it a lot of room, I admit. There's not even 30 lots on this world.)

The sims I'm using to populate it are some-- strike that, most of my story sims. Because they are faces that are familiar to me and that I can spot around town.


A couple of hacks I've picked up to help with game play:

Twallan's Story Progression and Sim Selector

The Sim selector is very essential right now. It allows you to hop from household to household without having to press all those extra buttons. (For any non TS3 players- you normally have to go to the main menu, select Edit Town, then select "change household," then you have to select the house hold you want to play). Now, with this mod, I just click on the sim I see walking around town and I can pick "make sim active" and then I'm seamlessly playing that sim's household without having to go to their house. No issues so far, and I've hopped around town on it's first actual test runs.


Still have torn lots


The lot tearing is a lot worse than I thought, to be honest. But I'm going to just ride with it. My fix had been to just delete a lot and plop a new one down, but somehow that doesn't seem to help at all (In fact it my have made it worse in the case of my meadow).

Mmm, pie!

With World Adventures, I love that we technically get shops in a way. You can buy food, and then eat it right there. So here is a semi-random sim enjoying pie. You can also buy a plate and eat it elsewhere, so I've got some outdoor eating areas. Same thing for the nectar. You can buy a bottle and then share it later on elsewhere.


I have managed to find some really gorgeous lots. Like this one which I have very near my forest.

It has a hidden little secret in the center of the lake. Sims can swim in it. (I did a little renovation though to try and make it mesh into the surroundings a little bit more because it had a fence around it.)

Here are three of my teens enjoying a dip in the pool. That's Selene (not introduced yet), Michael, and Julia (who was Killer's odd girl that stood behind him).


Right now I'm just wandering around patching up the town. Indispensable right now are MelissaMel's Rabbit Hole signs. But they're a little tricky. Place them wrong and sims either can't get in or end up getting stuck.





Here's my school that's right outside of the library. I had an issue where it was too close to the road, and sims all got stuck. I had about three standing there on top of each other. Paula just doesn't know. Teresa (the girl in front) is still traumatized about being one with two other people.

Lots of work to do still decorating the town. I think I have managed to completely gorge myself this weekend properly. It was all fast food and sims this weekend. Weekend well spent I think after the beginning of my week.

9 comments:

Laura said...

Wow, how weird is it to see Edy and Michael on a school bus??? Maybe he'll take her on a date to get ice cream after school or something, lol!

But oooh, I love that you're trying this again though, because I'm dying to know if anyone has managed to play full neighborhoods in Sims 3. Most of the stories I've seen have been all-out stories, or legacies so far, with some people juggling 2 or 3 households at most. And you know I'll be wanting to juggle 20 or 30, lol!

So I'll definitely be keeping all of this in mind, and I can't wait to see what else you manage to do with it :)

The Lunar Fox said...

I'm definitely thinking of Lakeside as I'm working on this project.

I think it will definitely take a different way of playing for this if you want to play an entire hood. In a way it is more organic because I'm really watching the entire town, and Twallan's Sim Selector Mod really helps with that. But even then, playing two days, I still have hopped around and not really focused on any one family.

So we'll see!

Carla said...

Very interesting and your town is just so beautiful! I love your lot with the hidden secret - a swimming hole! Too cool.

So gameplay questions: are you keeping aging on? What lifespan are you using? Like Laura, I haven't noticed anyone trying to play a big hood with TS3 and have been curious if anyone's been successful. I'll be watching this with interest.

Anonymous said...

A small town sounds really good, and yours is beautiful. The sim selector sounds like it would really help too. It is hard to change houses/sims in Sims 3.

The Lunar Fox said...

Thanks Carla. Still working on it! There's a lot of little things to get done in it.

Yes, I have aging on. I'm going to try playing the longer life span where they have like twice the life.

I think the problem with this is that unlike in TS2 where you can visit with each family, this one you're going to lose days no matter what, so this will take some thinking on my part I think. But the story progression really does make it interesting. All the sims are picking up jobs around town. They're even being the merchants at the stands and stuff so you really get that proper town feeling!

Francesca, the sim selector is SO handy and awesome. It really makes it so much easier. And I think it will end up being integral for whatever new play style I manage to come up with.

Anonymous said...

Wow, I love the new layout. Very swish!

Your world looks like it's starting to come together really well. I really wish I had the patience to stick with CAW, it might have given me more interest in Sims 3.

The Lunar Fox said...

Thanks. I don't know if I'm going to stick to it, but I wanted it to be lighter and not that strange polka dotted layout that's so narrow.

It's working out slowly. I'm adding fun stuff around town for me.

Finding out that TS3 REALLY is a resource hog. On my desktop, it kept freezing and crashing. So I can completely understand your frustration with the whole thing. For a while, I thought I'd done something wrong with my little world.

Jen said...

Wow, great blog, LunarFox; I'm chagrined that I didn't know about it until you linked to it on my site. I will definitely be following it from this point onward, as I love watching people developing their worlds. Plus you have some excellent tips on using CAW. Your world is looking gorgeous so far (love the first pic here with the evergreen trees and the mountains in the distance). Seeing pictures like that gives me hope that I might be able to make something decent eventually! Thanks so much for sharing your knowledge.

The Lunar Fox said...

Thank you! I don't do any advertising. Even throwing up a link on your site was a stretch for me, but I have learnings to share, and I like trading information. Plus CAW is something that I think takes more than one person to learn, lol.

And thank you. I'm still working on play style too right now. Eventually I'll do a proper tour of what I have for the town, but I'm using it as a set for my story, so I'm waiting until the town is introduced this Friday.

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