JENathan: Yeah, I included almost every type of lot with the world, which will spawn a lot of NPCs. I considered deleting some of the lots, but I felt that would be a pointless exercise. Players can simply pick and choose which developments they wish to keep and which to annihilate.
mmoblitz: I must agree with you. A lot of the issues that people list may be correlated with the worlds that I make, but not every problem is within my control. I have looked at the routing data for my world, and there are a bit of places that Sims may get stuck. The only way I can fix routing issues is if I have the problem specified, otherwise it is overwhelming.
gamemagg: Thank you.
I really did a lousy job with the descriptions in this world. There is poor punctuation everywhere, run-on sentences, and a few families and Sims do not have any description at all.
Edit: And... it looks like I accidentally deleted Agata Varland. It's okay. I'll just say that she died or something. Perhaps I will add her back in as an NPC zombie or something stupid that Quailhogs would typically put in a world.
Yeah, I included almost every type of lot with the world, which will spawn a lot of NPCs
I actually really like the density of the world. It makes the town feel alive and vibrant. I really only mention the anomalies I notice on the off chance that they are symptoms of more serious issues, since most of them aren't game-breaking at all.
one thing I have noticed with the routing issues is that many households have odd entry locations. whenever someone comes to Huset Pa Bakken for instance, they run a little ways down the hill (into the little depression) before going to the door. At the Lyng household, everyone runs up the hill to where the trashcan is. I know that routing is incredibly complex and inscrutable, so I can't even begin to understand what's causing the issues, but I point them out in case they are the bit of info that helps someone figure out what's going on.
That's going to be tough for me to fix, considering how I do not have seasons and do not know how snow works in the game. My hope is that it is just caused by lot tearing, which is relatively easy to fix; if not, God help me.
Regarding the entrances, I believe you mean that Sims choose to get to the door in an odd manner and not that I put the doors in weird spots (with exception to Martinov's Maze, which is intentionally confusing). I will admit, the terrain is a bit lopsided at the Lyng house. It originally was not like that, but I messed something up at one point in the process of building the lot. The problem with the Huset Pa Bakken is just completely senseless to me. I will try to increase the distance between the driveway and the house. If that does nothing, then I am going to have to reconfigure the house, which is going to be annoying.
You may not consider these problems to be a big deal, but I find routing issues to be insanely tedious to deal with when playing. I do not want the gameplay in this world to merely be tolerable.
Quailhogs the trouble along the side of the road might be in areas where there is no sidewalks - I am not sure about it though - but I have also seen that in at least 2 of EA ep worlds too every now and then.
I would ignor reports from Error Trap - it is still not functioning properly with all the coding changes EA has made in the last 3 eps and I think it is foolish even using a core mod and paying attention to it when it it is not running perfectly with EA's programing. Script is programming and Error trap tends to try and change what it sees is wrong. Even Twallan has been having trouble with several of his mods with changes to the code. He posted on his site that even Master Controller won't even be close to working right to June. People with his mods really should go over to his site and read all his daily reports on them all at least once a week.
But mods not working right does not make a game run smoother - they cause problems. So if mods are reporting problems I suggest you ignor them. I still play the very last version of Vargfell without issue I might add. I do plan to change to the green version though, as I technically shut off weather in this world because it just never looked right - I think it will be way better in the greener version myself. But without mods to tell me erroneous things, my game plays flawless and this world plays smooth. Granted I don't play in here every day - but I do play in each world a real time week at a time - I have a lot of worlds, never mind world testing - and I haven't had any issues to speak of.
Post edited by Unknown User on
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
I was hoping that wouldn't be the cause. I really do not want to add sidewalks to these roads; it just wouldn't look right. Nonetheless, the snow glitch does look horrible.
I do not use mods that report routing issues. I guess I got a little carried away with the error reports that people tell me about. My primary concern is that people have actually witnessed Sims getting stuck. That problem is less overwhelming than error reports, and thus is an easier problem for me to fix directly.
I will preface by saying I know nothing about CAW, all my building experience is on-lot, so I ask this question because I don't know the answer and am curious: Can you change the sidewalk texture at all, or are they locked into looking like concrete slabs? I agree that the plain suburban style sidewalks would look very out of place, but if you could make them dirt, or cobblestone (in the town areas) it could actually look nice.
I have done some experimenting with the routing errors. I played some with the Overwatch auto-reset feature off, and it seems that most of the 'stuck' Sims are just standing inside the front door of their home. This would make the error essentially a false alarm. The one place I have definitely seen Sims(especially horses) get stuck is the Lord Geir Jousting Arena. Sims have gotten stuck in the middle of the arena floor, and horses can sometimes glitch through the edges of the stalls, ending up in the corner rooms where the stairs are. They can't get through the doors, so they throw off all kinds of errors. I think it would be a pretty easy fix though, just take out the door in the interior wall and take out two sections of wall where the door is.
On another note: I highly recommend Seasons. Of all the expansion packs so far(with the possible exception of WA) The changing seasons add more to the core gameplay and immersion than any other expansion. The changing seasons really alter the feel of the game in a good and interesting way. Also, being able to control the length of each season(or turn them off completely if you want) gives a lot of flexibility. If you want to play a 'southern California' climate, you can turn off everything but summer, Desert: turn off rain, hail and fog and make fall and spring as short as possible. Pacific Northwest: make winter as short as possible and turn up fall and spring to compensate(we don't ever get much snow here).
For my Vargfjell game, I'm currently playing with the seasons set to one week summer, two each for fall and spring, and 4 weeks winter. It makes gardening a challenge, but it really gives the feeling of living in the far north. You can probably find Seasons for twenty bucks or so at this point, and it is definitely worth picking up.
No need to defend yourself. I'm not sure that I understand what you are suggesting. This world already uses dirt roads; in CAW you can easily change the types of roads and sidewalks you wish to use. I am quite pleased with how the roads look, with exception to the snow glitch that you pointed out. The bug may be due to the opacity setting that I used on the edges of the road, as Writin_Reg implied. I can make the edge of the road a solid texture, which may or may not fix the problem you are noting, but it will undoubtedly look horrible when the ground is barren of snow.
I still do not know how compatible Seasons is with Create a World. I've heard that you cannot use Create a World with Seasons... while that is old news, I do not know if that has changed by now. If somebody could confirm that the two work together, perhaps I will consider purchasing it. Of course, my worlds are becoming increasingly more difficult to edit as I install more expansion packs. While it would make the gameplay better, most of what I do is world-building.
Quailhogs - yes it does work with Season, but it still has an issue or two to do with Sea level and winter and there is the newest added problem of trying to export as the game suddenly does not want to export the world if one has a lot of store content - so the only way to get it to export is to temporarily remove the dccache folder and the dcbackup folder as well as the mods folder - then it will export. Another issue has to do with some weird problems with bridges - some that worked before seem to not work well now - mainly the ones sims and pets can walk over. I can't recall other issues but I keep thinking there were a few more little annoying things that I really think you could do with out.
Where we can adjust the seasons for every single world I do not see it a problem myself to just basically shut the seasons off in some worlds. I did not like how this world liked in any of the seasons - I like the fog and rain, and that was about it because Fall was too bright, summer looked ridiculous, even winter did not look quite right - it looks so much better with out any seasons I thought so that is the way I played it. So just changing the landscape to more green I think is a good idea.
But to me I think CAW and seasons has a lot of issues you might rather work without - it is just my opinion and I really do not see it benefitting you very much with the three finished worlds you have done already. Maybe that newest one might do well with the Seasons.
My guess if you really want to know how well the Season ep works with CAW, you might be best off asking Rflong as she is always making something and has Seasons. The things I listed is just things I see the creators talking about in other threads - except the bridge issues - I have seen a few of those myself testing a couple worlds not too long ago.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
After hearing that, I assumed that it was at least safe to download the latest patch and version of CAW. STUPID MOVE! Now edit in game no longer works. I hate everything.
Okay, I can edit in game now. It wasn't working because I am an idiot and forgot to delete everything in the mods folder before loading. I updated the list of testers, so now everyone who pointed out errors has credit. A real honor, I know.
Let me know if there are any problems with this version. I didn't change a lot, with exception to the terrain.
I added a couple of small islands to explore. I suppose you can swim to them. If not, there are some dive wells that connect to them.
I modified some of the Sims just a little bit. Nobody really "new" was added, but at least one person went through drastic changes.
I also edited the descriptions so that they no longer read as if they were written by a seven-year-old.
The buildings with routing issues and abnormalities were edited. If there are still any issues with that, please point them out and be as SPECIFIC as possible. Enjoy.
Most definitely will do - downloading now - but still need to uninstall the previous version. Thanks Quailhogs - as always for your always exceptional and excellent work and will let you know if I see anything.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
I have just downloaded and played very little - but it looks wonderful
I have found a fix for the spiral stairs routing issues - instead of editing every single lot to replace stairs, I tried using master controllers reset town because I am a lazy person and want a simple fix. And it worked!
I have not been playing any custom worlds for a long time now just because of those stairs, I wish I had tried master controllers function sooner.
I don't even know if it's every lot that the stairs a placed in; I think it has more to do with the stairs being placed in the right spot. I don't know, the spiral stairs are a tricky element when building.
Well I played in here a good part of last night and had absolutely no issues. Plays smooth as fine woven silk - just thought I would let you know. Still looks gorgeous to me anyway.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
I don't even know if it's every lot that the stairs a placed in; I think it has more to do with the stairs being placed in the right spot. I don't know, the spiral stairs are a tricky element when building.
I have played around with the stairs quite a bit and I have found that having them on an angle to the grid keeps them from becoming unusable. It appears that the top of the stairs is requiring a free square off to one side(I tested it by putting one up to a rooftop deck in the winter. Like with doors and gates, snow doesn't accumulate on the stairs' required tiles). Putting the stairs at the angle keeps the additional required space from passing through a wall, fence or object, which is making the stairs un-routable. So far I have had routing issues due to stair placement in the Varland, Lyng and Ensomhet households, and my fix seems to have worked i=on all of them. The only downside is that the area at the bottom sometimes needs tweaking to keep the landing accessible.
Also, here is a screenshot that shows the odd pathing for people leaving Huset Paa Bakken. It's dark, but you can see the trail of footprints from the driveway to the edge of the lot in the snow, and the position of the car he is going to:
That doesn't seem to make sense. I tested the stairs in some of those households myself using edit in game, and they worked just fine. To me, it seems to have something to do with the way the world exports.
Shimrod has a fix that has worked great for me, since the spiral stair case mess started: ShimrodsSpiralStairsUseStairsFix126.package
It can be found at TFM's Naughty Sims Asylum You have to join but it is free, it is under Shimrod's name or do a google search for the mod. I not had to move or do anything else with the spiral staircases since I've been using this mod.
Is anyone having issues with stairs still? I think the mod that citytube mentioned is for the game itself, so I don't think that me using this mod will make the world anymore playable on the downloader's end. Also, how is the general ambiance? I used the sky and water files from Moonlight Falls. Originally the effects looked quite nice, but in the game it appears to give the world a strange and unfitting hue (not during the full moon). Is it like this on other machines?
This thread has been quiet for a while, but I am still interested in buffing out the remaining scratches in the world. Please continue to list your complaints, for while I irrationally respond to them most of the time, they are very helpful to the progression of this world. I have yet to receive a nonconstructive comment on any of these threads.
I only found two and those I picked up and put back down in the same spot and that fixed them. But this world is one of the user worlds I just retested this past week end for about 5 hours with no problems playing in here at all. I am pretty sure I checked most of the lots.
So I am very happy with it. I had to do a total reinstall - new harddrive - so I was really careful what worlds I did keep and you will be happy to know all 3 of yours are back in. I decided to just re-add user worlds I actually enjoy playing more than jumping in them once a year, and because I have all the ea worlds, both store and ep - well I could not see the point of having an additional 37 worlds on top of all those - so I was really selective - and your 3 world passed my first test of zero play problems, from there they passed my next two requirements of being up to date and the lots and sims Unique to each world - so I played each one over the week-end 4-6 hours each, and all three I can't not have in my game. So it is quiet because they play perfectly as far as I am seeing. But if I see anything I will surely let you know. I am still testing and narrowing down my worlds to just 12 user made ones - and it is hard as I want to leave room for your new one as well as Rflongs new one. I love the way your new world looks so far - so I am saving it a spot. I rarely have any issues with your worlds, so I am fairly certain this one won't be any different and will be troublefree. You always do such a beautiful job on everything.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
I will reload your newest version of Vargfjell, and play it. I've been thinking it would be fun to use with some of the dragon fall characters added in, but I don't really like green and blue folks, so I think I will just play it as is. I know the last time I had it installed, it played very well. You are right about shimrods step mod...I think it is something that the end user would have to use.
Loving your worlds, and looking forward to your newest one.
Thank you for creating such an amazing world!
I've used Vargfjell for my sims baby challenge which you can have a look at here: http://zahrasbabies.wordpress.com/
I have written a little about Vargfjell and shared a link for it on the "About" page of my blog so people visiting will know who made this beautiful world and where to download it!
Comments
mmoblitz: I must agree with you. A lot of the issues that people list may be correlated with the worlds that I make, but not every problem is within my control. I have looked at the routing data for my world, and there are a bit of places that Sims may get stuck. The only way I can fix routing issues is if I have the problem specified, otherwise it is overwhelming.
gamemagg: Thank you.
I really did a lousy job with the descriptions in this world. There is poor punctuation everywhere, run-on sentences, and a few families and Sims do not have any description at all.
Edit: And... it looks like I accidentally deleted Agata Varland. It's okay. I'll just say that she died or something. Perhaps I will add her back in as an NPC zombie or something stupid that Quailhogs would typically put in a world.
http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/l599/jenathan76/Screenshot-23.jpg
http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/l599/jenathan76/Screenshot-22.jpg
http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/l599/jenathan76/Screenshot-21.jpg
I actually really like the density of the world. It makes the town feel alive and vibrant. I really only mention the anomalies I notice on the off chance that they are symptoms of more serious issues, since most of them aren't game-breaking at all.
one thing I have noticed with the routing issues is that many households have odd entry locations. whenever someone comes to Huset Pa Bakken for instance, they run a little ways down the hill (into the little depression) before going to the door. At the Lyng household, everyone runs up the hill to where the trashcan is. I know that routing is incredibly complex and inscrutable, so I can't even begin to understand what's causing the issues, but I point them out in case they are the bit of info that helps someone figure out what's going on.
Regarding the entrances, I believe you mean that Sims choose to get to the door in an odd manner and not that I put the doors in weird spots (with exception to Martinov's Maze, which is intentionally confusing). I will admit, the terrain is a bit lopsided at the Lyng house. It originally was not like that, but I messed something up at one point in the process of building the lot. The problem with the Huset Pa Bakken is just completely senseless to me. I will try to increase the distance between the driveway and the house. If that does nothing, then I am going to have to reconfigure the house, which is going to be annoying.
You may not consider these problems to be a big deal, but I find routing issues to be insanely tedious to deal with when playing. I do not want the gameplay in this world to merely be tolerable.
I would ignor reports from Error Trap - it is still not functioning properly with all the coding changes EA has made in the last 3 eps and I think it is foolish even using a core mod and paying attention to it when it it is not running perfectly with EA's programing. Script is programming and Error trap tends to try and change what it sees is wrong. Even Twallan has been having trouble with several of his mods with changes to the code. He posted on his site that even Master Controller won't even be close to working right to June. People with his mods really should go over to his site and read all his daily reports on them all at least once a week.
But mods not working right does not make a game run smoother - they cause problems. So if mods are reporting problems I suggest you ignor them. I still play the very last version of Vargfell without issue I might add. I do plan to change to the green version though, as I technically shut off weather in this world because it just never looked right - I think it will be way better in the greener version myself. But without mods to tell me erroneous things, my game plays flawless and this world plays smooth. Granted I don't play in here every day - but I do play in each world a real time week at a time - I have a lot of worlds, never mind world testing - and I haven't had any issues to speak of.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
I do not use mods that report routing issues. I guess I got a little carried away with the error reports that people tell me about. My primary concern is that people have actually witnessed Sims getting stuck. That problem is less overwhelming than error reports, and thus is an easier problem for me to fix directly.
I have done some experimenting with the routing errors. I played some with the Overwatch auto-reset feature off, and it seems that most of the 'stuck' Sims are just standing inside the front door of their home. This would make the error essentially a false alarm. The one place I have definitely seen Sims(especially horses) get stuck is the Lord Geir Jousting Arena. Sims have gotten stuck in the middle of the arena floor, and horses can sometimes glitch through the edges of the stalls, ending up in the corner rooms where the stairs are. They can't get through the doors, so they throw off all kinds of errors. I think it would be a pretty easy fix though, just take out the door in the interior wall and take out two sections of wall where the door is.
On another note: I highly recommend Seasons. Of all the expansion packs so far(with the possible exception of WA) The changing seasons add more to the core gameplay and immersion than any other expansion. The changing seasons really alter the feel of the game in a good and interesting way. Also, being able to control the length of each season(or turn them off completely if you want) gives a lot of flexibility. If you want to play a 'southern California' climate, you can turn off everything but summer, Desert: turn off rain, hail and fog and make fall and spring as short as possible. Pacific Northwest: make winter as short as possible and turn up fall and spring to compensate(we don't ever get much snow here).
For my Vargfjell game, I'm currently playing with the seasons set to one week summer, two each for fall and spring, and 4 weeks winter. It makes gardening a challenge, but it really gives the feeling of living in the far north. You can probably find Seasons for twenty bucks or so at this point, and it is definitely worth picking up.
I still do not know how compatible Seasons is with Create a World. I've heard that you cannot use Create a World with Seasons... while that is old news, I do not know if that has changed by now. If somebody could confirm that the two work together, perhaps I will consider purchasing it. Of course, my worlds are becoming increasingly more difficult to edit as I install more expansion packs. While it would make the gameplay better, most of what I do is world-building.
Where we can adjust the seasons for every single world I do not see it a problem myself to just basically shut the seasons off in some worlds. I did not like how this world liked in any of the seasons - I like the fog and rain, and that was about it because Fall was too bright, summer looked ridiculous, even winter did not look quite right - it looks so much better with out any seasons I thought so that is the way I played it. So just changing the landscape to more green I think is a good idea.
But to me I think CAW and seasons has a lot of issues you might rather work without - it is just my opinion and I really do not see it benefitting you very much with the three finished worlds you have done already. Maybe that newest one might do well with the Seasons.
My guess if you really want to know how well the Season ep works with CAW, you might be best off asking Rflong as she is always making something and has Seasons. The things I listed is just things I see the creators talking about in other threads - except the bridge issues - I have seen a few of those myself testing a couple worlds not too long ago.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
Let me know if there are any problems with this version. I didn't change a lot, with exception to the terrain.
I added a couple of small islands to explore. I suppose you can swim to them. If not, there are some dive wells that connect to them.
I modified some of the Sims just a little bit. Nobody really "new" was added, but at least one person went through drastic changes.
I also edited the descriptions so that they no longer read as if they were written by a seven-year-old.
The buildings with routing issues and abnormalities were edited. If there are still any issues with that, please point them out and be as SPECIFIC as possible. Enjoy.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
I have found a fix for the spiral stairs routing issues - instead of editing every single lot to replace stairs, I tried using master controllers reset town because I am a lazy person and want a simple fix. And it worked!
I have not been playing any custom worlds for a long time now just because of those stairs, I wish I had tried master controllers function sooner.
Anyway, I just thought I would share.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
I have played around with the stairs quite a bit and I have found that having them on an angle to the grid keeps them from becoming unusable. It appears that the top of the stairs is requiring a free square off to one side(I tested it by putting one up to a rooftop deck in the winter. Like with doors and gates, snow doesn't accumulate on the stairs' required tiles). Putting the stairs at the angle keeps the additional required space from passing through a wall, fence or object, which is making the stairs un-routable. So far I have had routing issues due to stair placement in the Varland, Lyng and Ensomhet households, and my fix seems to have worked i=on all of them. The only downside is that the area at the bottom sometimes needs tweaking to keep the landing accessible.
Also, here is a screenshot that shows the odd pathing for people leaving Huset Paa Bakken. It's dark, but you can see the trail of footprints from the driveway to the edge of the lot in the snow, and the position of the car he is going to:
http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/975/307258.page
It can be found at TFM's Naughty Sims Asylum You have to join but it is free, it is under Shimrod's name or do a google search for the mod. I not had to move or do anything else with the spiral staircases since I've been using this mod.
This thread has been quiet for a while, but I am still interested in buffing out the remaining scratches in the world. Please continue to list your complaints, for while I irrationally respond to them most of the time, they are very helpful to the progression of this world. I have yet to receive a nonconstructive comment on any of these threads.
So I am very happy with it. I had to do a total reinstall - new harddrive - so I was really careful what worlds I did keep and you will be happy to know all 3 of yours are back in. I decided to just re-add user worlds I actually enjoy playing more than jumping in them once a year, and because I have all the ea worlds, both store and ep - well I could not see the point of having an additional 37 worlds on top of all those - so I was really selective - and your 3 world passed my first test of zero play problems, from there they passed my next two requirements of being up to date and the lots and sims Unique to each world - so I played each one over the week-end 4-6 hours each, and all three I can't not have in my game. So it is quiet because they play perfectly as far as I am seeing. But if I see anything I will surely let you know. I am still testing and narrowing down my worlds to just 12 user made ones - and it is hard as I want to leave room for your new one as well as Rflongs new one. I love the way your new world looks so far - so I am saving it a spot. I rarely have any issues with your worlds, so I am fairly certain this one won't be any different and will be troublefree. You always do such a beautiful job on everything.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
I will reload your newest version of Vargfjell, and play it. I've been thinking it would be fun to use with some of the dragon fall characters added in, but I don't really like green and blue folks, so I think I will just play it as is. I know the last time I had it installed, it played very well. You are right about shimrods step mod...I think it is something that the end user would have to use.
Loving your worlds, and looking forward to your newest one.
I've used Vargfjell for my sims baby challenge which you can have a look at here:
http://zahrasbabies.wordpress.com/
I have written a little about Vargfjell and shared a link for it on the "About" page of my blog so people visiting will know who made this beautiful world and where to download it!